


Unremarkable

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Peril, Threats of Violence, contains some swearing in case that's a problem for anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 29,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24513322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: Sometimes, the most remarkable people are those nobody notices at all.A Spy AU for the Good AUmens event.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 372
Kudos: 135
Collections: Good AUmens AU Fest





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

>   
>    
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go... Most of this is written and all of it is outlined (a very rare occurrence for me) so let's see how it goes. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Today's will be a double update, and then I'll be posting every three days or so.

**Present Day**

The street was crowded, bustling crowds going about their business on an unseasonably pleasant day. The sunlight seemed to enhance every colour; the awnings above the shopfronts, the flowers in their barrels, the patio umbrellas above his head. The unremarkable little man sat outside the unremarkable little café and drank his unremarkable tea, savouring the steady everyday rhythm of the city he loved.

There was a screech of tires and a commotion as people ran away from the taxi that had just parked haphazardly across the width of the street. They were so focused on berating the driver that he wouldn't be surprised if nobody even saw the man who slipped out of the back seat and sauntered nonchalantly away, towards the very café where the unremarkable man sat sipping tea.

He sat at the next table over, his back to the unremarkable man, and ordered a black coffee. Silence fell between them as the waiter left to fetch it.  
"I hope you paid the fare, at least."  
"Course I did. You have to tip pretty well for that kind of entrance. Besides, cabbies never forget a fare-dodger."  
"Good lord. Do you mean to say you've finally learned that it's better to be unremarkable?"  
"You always say that, but you're not very good at it. You've never been anything less than remarkable." His coffee arrived, necessitating a pause in the conversation until the waiter retreated once more. "So, what have you got?"  
"Found out what you wanted, though I can't imagine what use it'll be to you. Need a favour in return."  
"Anything."  
"The details are in a file inside my newspaper. Your information, too."  
"Should I say thank you?"  
"Better not."

He stood, leaving his newspaper on the table, an unremarkable oversight made by an unremarkable man. Even as he walked away, he was aware of the man behind him making an exaggerated stretching motion before leaning to swipe the paper. People would see it, would tell their friends about the man who'd tried so hard to be subtle about stealing an unattended newspaper and failed so spectacularly. They wouldn't, of course, remember anything else about it, or the man, or any of the things they couldn't begin to guess about him.

There was, after all, more than one way to go unnoticed.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't mind the format here, I'm trying something new and you're all my guinea pigs. Enjoy!

**27.5 years ago**

Aziraphale sat in a dark, quiet corner of the pub. He smiled when he was smiled at, laughed when his friends told jokes, and drank just enough to go uncommented on. He also kept his back against the wall of the booth, eyes darting from side to side as he took in his surroundings. The bar staff were keeping a wary eye on what looked like a bunch of first-years on their first real night out, but Aziraphale didn’t consider them worth watching, compared to the small group of older students clustered around the noticeboard at the back of the room. He’d briefly scanned the notices posted there on the way in, and the one they all seemed to be gesticulating about was the Ministry of Defence’s _REMAIN CALM. RUMOURS CAUSE RIOTS._ There was no shortage of rumours - unlike many other commodities - and it seemed the students in question objected to the implication that they should stay calm in the face of an approaching schism.

“Maybe it should all kick off,” he heard one of them say, as the noise in the bar dropped for a moment, “maybe we should just split the good half of the country off already and leave the others to fend for themselves.”  
His words were met with cheers and fists raised in the air; at Aziraphale’s table, his friends laughed.  
“Don’t you think, Aziraphale?” He blinked. _Focus. What were they saying, while you were scoping for trouble?_ Newt had been doing an impression of the head of Computing, turning down his request to sit in on yet another lecture.  
“It does seem unfair,” he said, “you can hardly be blamed if his powerpoint crashed.”  
“That was uncanny, though,” Anathema told him, “have you met Professor Fleming, Aziraphale? I did, when I went with Newt last time, and he really does sound like that.”  
“Oh, yes. I had a meeting with him last year about-” _Information Security, but they don’t need to know that._ “-a question regarding my dissertation. Not that it ended up making it into the final essay, of course, you know how big projects like that change.”  
“Well, I do seem to jinx computers,” Newt conceded miserably, “I can’t blame him for not wanting me anywhere near his department. I only got to sit in on that last one because he was scared of Anathema.”  
“He was not scared of me,” Anathema insisted, “he just knew his daughter was counting on my tutoring, and her exams were coming up. More than his life was worth to cross me. ”  
“Yes, yes.” The students by the noticeboard were beginning to look quite boisterous, actually. Quite murderous. There was an unsettling energy coming off of them, and Aziraphale didn’t like it.

There wasn’t much he could do to help diffuse the situation - he could tell they wouldn’t easily be talked down - but he could keep his friends well clear of it.  
“I have a rather nice bottle of wine back at my place,” Aziraphale told them brightly, “who wants to come and see if it lives up to its promise?”  
“Sounds good,” Anathema agreed, and they left without further delay.

The next day, when news of the brawl reached them, all Aziraphale’s friends could talk about was how lucky they’d been to leave when they did.

Months later, when the army took control of campus, Aziraphale would regret that they hadn’t gone far enough.

* * *

**Present Day**

“Here he comes,” Dagon muttered, pressing her earpiece into her ear under the pretext of adjusting the folded newspaper protecting her hair from the rain. “Subtle as ever, the flash bastard.”  
Sure enough, a tall, lanky figure was making its way across the square, vaulting a railing and making wild kicking motions to send pigeons scattering.

A vague, staticky buzzing came through Dagon’s earpiece.  
“Yeah. He is. And I see… three cameras. All tourists.” More buzzing. “Doubt it. Here he comes.”  
“Dagon, old pal!” The tall man grinned widely before lowering his voice. “Boss. Should I be worried or flattered that someone of your level has come out to see little old me?”  
“Both is good.” Dagon levelled her best glare at him, but it did about as much good as it ever did. Which was none at all. “Got that intel we wanted?”  
“Yeah, most of it.” The tall man held up a sleek, shiny flash drive, waggling it between his fingers. “All on here, typed by my own fair hand. Couple of leads I’m still waiting to follow up, sources that need to report back, but those are due tonight or tomorrow, so-”  
“Put it in your report, Crowley. I don’t care.” Dagon rolled her eyes. “Now, I have things to do, so if you could leave without drawing too much attention to yourself-”  
“Ah, but Dagon,” Crowley grinned that irritating grin again, “in this whole square, in this whole country, who’s the last person you’d suspect of being a spy?”  
“I’m not answering that-”  
“Correct! The grown man paddling in the fountain.” And Crowley clapped her on the back before heading off in the direction of the square’s central water feature.

Dagon wasn’t paid nearly enough to watch Crowley pratting about in a fountain, so she didn’t. She really did have work to do.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update! I had a look at how much I'd written and realised if I post every three days we'll be here for months. So, I'm going to aim for every two days instead. Enjoy!

**27 years ago**

The war had barely touched the university, really. The news reports had come in - violence in the west, rival factions tussling over territory, the army moving in to control the situation as much as they could. The streets ran red, but not in Ghadon. Letters from home stopped coming in, phone calls became patchy at best and then stopped coming altogether. Crowley had never regretted moving away to study, until now, but it was becoming increasingly hard to focus on his work as the situation nearer home became worse.

And then the trucks rolled in. Huge, khaki-painted monstrosities that made Crowley itch to lash out at them somehow, to let the air out of their tires and flip off their drivers as they passed. He didn’t, though; he was rebellious, but not stupid. Everyone on that truck had a gun, and every one of them already looked at him as if he was just a grenade that hadn’t had its pin pulled yet.

How little they knew. He might resent the idea of the army taking over his territory, this sanctuary of learning he’d carved himself out a place in, but he didn’t oppose them in general. Somebody had to keep the peace. Somebody had to stop the bloodshed. More bloodshed wasn’t Crowley’s preferred method of doing that, but at least these soldiers were trying to do good. They were trying to keep the peace, to keep the country together. Crowley could respect that, he supposed. Moreover, they were playing to their strengths. If you were a soldier with a gun, then it was pretty clear how you should proceed. Crowley understood that. Crowley knew how to play to his strengths.

All his life, he’d been hiding. Hiding his resentment, his anger, his passion. He pasted on a thin veneer of cool, and beneath that was an impenetrable shield of sarcasm, and underneath that were all the closely-guarded secrets that made up the truth of him. Crowley had been hiding his whole life, lying and faking and never giving any hint of hidden depths. It was, in all honesty, probably his only talent, and he intended to use it to live his wildest dreams. He was going to be a spy, and more than that he was going to be the best, the coolest, the most awesome spy the world had ever known.

He’d be working for his country, just like the soldiers surrounding him, and he’d be making good money. Doing what he was good at, and what he loved; manipulating people and learning their secrets. It sounded a bit creepy if you put it like that, but it was what Crowley lived for; that kick of power and the delicious restraint of not misusing it. After a life of powerlessness, he just wanted some measure of control. Being a spy might not allow him the freedom he wanted, let alone the control, but he could get that elsewhere. What he wanted, more than anything, was to be able to use his talents and have them mean something. He wanted to be valuable, to be valued. He wanted to go home at the end of the day with the satisfaction of knowing he’d done something good.

Soldiers on campus were one thing; fighting nearby began to feel uncomfortable. The western militia seemed to have taken a lot of ground, recently, and now they were only fifty miles from the university. Student meetings were called, the whole campus crammed into various lecture halls and informed of the growing danger by video link. And then, at last, the big one.

“Thank you for coming,” said the Vice-Chancellor’s pixellated face. The camera jerked sharply to the left, but it was too late; judging by the unimpressed faces and the jeers of the students around Crowley, he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the view outside the Vice-Chancellor’s window. He’d be very surprised if that view was of a beach anywhere but Tempal, a holiday island for the super-rich as far east as you could get without leaving the country. “I know it’s not easy for any of us in these dangerous times,” the man continued, apparently unaware of the slip, “and I’m pleased to be able to inform you that this uncertainty is finally coming to an end. Today, the rebels have reached an agreement with our government and a compromise has been reached, to stop the bloodshed and keep trouble from reaching us here in Ghadon.” You’re not in Ghadon, Crowley thought irritably, but all irritation was immediately forgotten as the Vice-Chancellor continued. “Effective from midnight tonight, the nation of Celestan will be divided into two new nations. The border is yet to be formally announced, but it seems likely to follow the current lines of engagement. The war is over. Please try to keep celebrations under control; you are representatives of this institution and-”

Crowley stood and left the room. The division of a nation, even if it somehow _did_ bring peace, didn’t feel like much cause for celebration.

Especially when his family, his home, and everything he knew was on the other side of the border.

* * *

**Present Day**

An unremarkable man sat on a bench beside a fountain and frowned at his newspaper. In between frowning at it, he frowned over the top of it at the actions of a tall, gangly man who was flopping around in the water, feigning backstroke and butterfly and all sorts of nonsense. At length, the gangly man got bored, or cold, or tired, and settled on the steps nearby to wring his socks out.  
“Must you make such a scene every time we meet?”  
“We’re not meeting. I got called to a rendezvous with the higher-ups here at the last minute, and that-” He flapped a sock in the vague direction of the fountain. “That _scene_ , as you insist on calling it, is the only reason they didn’t notice you. Now if you’ve got any sense at all, you’ll leave. Now. Before anyone starts looking too closely, now I’ve stopped embarrassing them.”  
“And my information?”  
Crowley shrugged. “Easy enough to get. You know, it’s the damnedest thing. I think that funny bloke in the fountain left his glasses case on the edge. Someone really ought to pick that up.”

The tall man had walked about ten paces away from the fountain when the unremarkable man called out to him.  
“I don’t see- oh, really.”  
“I didn’t say I left it on the dry side,” the tall man replied cheerfully, and kept walking.

The unremarkable man sighed and leaned forward, using a tartan umbrella to reach for the discarded case. He watched from the corner of his eye as the tall man took a few more running passes at the pigeons in the square, detoured via a little girl’s game of hopscotch, and left.


	4. Chapter 3

**27 years ago**

Crowley had agonised over the decision, but he’d made it all the same. He would stay where he was. The new country where his family lived was in shambles, trying to draw itself up into a coherent entity out of a patchwork of militant factions who now found themselves tasked with establishing a government and ruling over a country they themselves had only recently laid waste to. Crowley had no desire to become embroiled in that mess; he had plans, and they were already in motion. He’d submitted his application to the Celestani intelligence service months ago, and they’d advanced him to the next stage before things had got really bad. If he stayed, he could attend his graduation ceremony, and then he might have a career. If he went home, he had nothing - no certainty, no future, and perhaps even no family. He still had things he wanted to know, places he wanted to see, things he wanted to do, and going home meant giving up his best chance at all of those things.

He didn’t expect so much to change, so quickly. The moment he walked into the pub, he could sense it; students who just a week ago would have been drinking and laughing together were regarding each other with outright suspicion. And then he saw it; a crudely-made poster indicating that students from Lestern should sit on one side of the room - the one nearest the bar - and students from Fernor should stick to the tables at the back. Well, that was ridiculous. He went to take a seat at the bar, as usual, and a girl he vaguely recognised from his Astrophysics lectures thumped her bag down on the only available stool, daring him to say something about it.

“Crowley! Over here!” He turned, feeling distinctly unsettled, to find Eric, who’d had the room down the hall from him in first year, waving at him from a table at the back. He shot the girl from Astrophysics one last scowl before sauntering over to take the seat he was being offered.  
“Thanks.” He had to work hard to keep the surprise from his voice; he knew Eric, vaguely, but they’d never been particularly close friends. Now, Eric and all of his equally-trendy, near-identical companions were glaring towards the girl at the bar as if she’d personally offended them, and not just Crowley. “What the hell’s going on?”  
“The army have been registering people all day, haven’t you been past the Administration building?” Crowley shook his head. “You should go along, probably. We’re supposed to register our intent to stay, or not. Citizens - if you were born here, this side of the new border - get a stamp on their campus ID. See them all wearing them, over there? We got told to come back tomorrow, when they’ve decided what the hell they’re doing with us.” Eric shrugged. “I suppose it’s going to take a while to sort out the visa situation, or whatever.”  
“So this… whatever this is,” he gestured vaguely at the sign and the two distinct groups of students, “is this sanctioned by the uni?”  
“No idea,” Eric admitted. “The uni, the government - who knows? It doesn’t really make me want to stick around. I’ve got my degree, I might as well go home if it’s gonna be like this.”  
“Well, I’m staying.” Crowley sighed. “Takes more than a bit of snobbery to get me to budge.”

That was when the men came in. Military types, guns strapped across their bodies, and Crowley immediately got a bad feeling about them.  
“That said, I don’t think we’re getting served, so-”  
“Oi. Smartarse. Shut up.” Crowley turned to see who was speaking to him, and found himself looking directly up at a man with a neck thicker than Crowley’s waist. He looked like he could snap Crowley in half without breaking a sweat, and that was without the body armour and the weapons. He couldn’t tell if this group was a few off-duty soldiers or part of one of the various little militia groups that had sprung up during the recent conflict, but either could spell trouble. Crowley would do well not to annoy them.

Crowley had never had a very good sense of self-preservation.  
“Or what?”  
The man sneered at him, then turned to address “Fernor’s” side of the room as a whole. “You lot don’t belong here. Swear your allegiance to Lestern and forsake Fernor, or get out of our country.”  
“You’ve got to be joking,” Crowley blurted, but already the other soldiers had fanned out among the Fernori, holding some sort of book out and insisting people swear on it. The man looming over Crowley held it out to him.  
“Swear.” And it wasn’t so much that Crowley didn’t like Lestern, or that he was particularly patriotic to Fernor, a country that hadn't existed a month ago; it was more that he didn’t appreciate the tone the soldiers were taking.  
“Fuck off,” he said, and laughed in the man’s face.

He remembered little bits of the ensuing fight - people running for the exits, glasses smashing, Eric pressing himself back against the wall in terror and the high-pitched warcry of another drinker - but then the butt of a gun crashed into his face.

He woke up in the back of a truck, pressed in between Eric and a couple of other guys with fat lips and black eyes, both of whom were cursing liberally under their breath. There were others, in the truck, but turning his head to try to see them just made his head hurt.  
“Where-?”  
“Shut up, back there!”  
“Where-?” Crowley whispered, and Eric shook his head.  
“Dunno, exactly. We went through a big checkpoint. I think… I think we’re across the border.”  
“They’re either gonna let us out and strand us in Fernor,” one of the cursing men whispered, “or they’re just taking us somewhere to shoot us. Better hope it was the border.”

The truck rumbled to a stop, and the door was wrenched open.  
“Out. Out, or we start shooting.” They stumbled from the truck and Crowley tried to get his eyes to focus on a single image, not the double vision that threatened to topple him. They were in a field, somewhere. The middle of nowhere. The middle of the night. Oh, hell. This was how he was going to die.  
“Try to follow us, and we’ll shoot you. Welcome home, now stay there.”   
"Where are we supposed to go?" Crowley demanded, and the butt of a gun sent him crashing to the ground again.  
"Not our problem."

When the noise of the engine died away, when the world stopped spinning at last, Crowley looked up to find that he was alone.  
"Bugger all this," he grumbled, and sauntered vaguely westward.

* * *

**Present Day**

The unremarkable man’s home was full of unremarkable things, but every one of them meant something to him. He kept a carefully curated collection of clutter, and although on occasion he had to put it all into storage and move, he never let that deter him from making the effort in the first place. His home was filled with comfortable armchairs and plump cushions, figurines and snuffboxes and books, hundreds and hundreds of books. There was so much packed into his modestly-sized flat that it was sometimes hard to see the soft, warm rugs on the floor, or the earth-toned wallpaper in every room, but the unremarkable man thought, privately, that if anyone were to break in or otherwise gain entry to his humble abode they would think it quite an unremarkable dwelling. Any absent-minded, faintly scholarly bachelor might live in a flat like this without arousing suspicion, he told himself. And it didn’t matter, when it came down to it, because nobody ever visited.

One of the perks of the location was that it was above an antiquarian bookshop, of the sort the unremarkable man enjoyed getting lost in on occasion. Furthermore, the owner of that antiquarian bookshop had, at some point early in the unremarkable man’s tenancy, stumbled across a photograph of Gabriel and several of his executive colleagues, standing outside the bookshop that served as a front for one of the Lesterni Intelligence Service’s bases of operation. The owner, therefore, had a tendency to rush out and try to drive them away whenever they came near the place, and so - to avoid a scene - they no longer came to the unremarkable man’s home. This was, of course, a desperately unfortunate turn of events, and brought the unremarkable man no pleasure whatsoever.

He had admired and respected his superiors, once, but that time seemed very long ago now. Over time, their supercilious ways and their sneering backhanded compliments had grown tiresome, almost to the point of being unbearable.

There was a grand total of one thing he would miss about his job if he lost it tomorrow, and he was beginning to wonder if there was some way to keep him- to keep it, rather, and just… disappear, somehow. He wondered if he could ever be free.


	5. Chapter 4

**27 years ago**

Crowley spent a week hitch-hiking through Celestan- no, through _Fernor_ , he had to get used to that. It wasn’t as hard as he might have expected, thinking of it as a whole new country; certainly, the ruined buildings and barbed wire he passed on his journey were a far cry from the safe, comfortable place he remembered from his childhood. The important thing, he told himself, was that he was going to get himself home. He would get home, find his family, and start picking up the pieces of his life. It had to be possible; he had been on track for a bright future in Celestan, and he could pull one together here, too.

The first flaw in his plan was that when he arrived home, his family weren’t there.  
“They’ve gone,” a neighbour told him, “packed up and left in the night, in the middle of the fighting. Hopefully, they made it out. Can’t be sure, though.”  
“Did they say where they were going?” The neighbour gave him a sympathetic look.  
“No, love. I don’t think they knew themselves. I am sorry.”  
“It’s OK,” Crowley lied, doing his best to keep himself together. “Er. I think I’ll stay put and wait for them. Do you still have the spare key?”

He took it and let himself in - his own key was still safely in his desk drawer in halls, unless the room had been looted - before searching the place for any sign of a note. A cryptic clue. Anything. But other than signs that they’d left in a hurry, there was no hint of where his family might have gone. He could only stay where he was, and hope they would come back now that the fighting had died down.

At least being at home meant that he could dig out a change of clothes - not his favourites, which he’d taken to uni with him, but serviceable nonetheless - and take a shower before settling down in front of a rolling news broadcast, his little sister’s second-favourite teddy bear cradled tenderly in his lap. They would come back for him. They were OK, they had to be. He would see them again.

He’d been waiting for nearly six weeks when the phone rang.  
“Mum?” The silence on the line sounded disapproving, somehow, even through the static. “Hello?” he amended hastily, and was rewarded with a deep sigh.  
“This izz Crowley?”  
“Who’s asking?”  
“Anthony J Crowley?” That made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  
“Who is this?” But the line went dead.

Three hours later, a stranger was on his doorstep.  
“Mr Crowley,” she greeted when he opened the door a crack and peered suspiciously at her. “I’m here to talk to you about a career opportunity.”  
“I don’t think-”  
“Your caution does you credit,” she told him, “in our line of work - the one you applied for a few months ago - that will serve you well.”  
“The- oh.” He did remember putting an application in. “You’d better come in, then. I, er, I didn’t think that would be going forward. Considering everything.”  
“Well,” she told him as she made herself comfortable on his sofa, “I don’t expect you’ll be getting a call from the organisation to which you originally applied. Fortunately for you, there were operatives from both sides of the new border within that organisation, and some of the application papers found their way west with us. Including yours. Very promising. You’ll start right away.”  
“I- I will?” Crowley frowned. “Do I have a choice in the matter?”  
“Of course,” she told him, “if you’d rather sit here and mope, while somebody else does what’s necessary to rebuild the country-”  
“No. No, I- of course, I’m- where do I sign? When do I start training?”  
“I’ve brought the paperwork with me, and you’ll ship out next week to Eden.”  
“To- for training?”  
“No. I’m sure you appreciate that we need to hit the ground running. Next week, you’ll be a fully-fledged operative on your first assignment. We need the regime destablised by whatever means you can devise, and we can get you right into the middle of it. Unless you don’t think you can handle it?”  
“No, no, I- I can give it a go.” Crowley smiled, hoping he didn’t look as anxious as he felt. “Just get in there and make some trouble, right? How hard can it be?”  
“Exactly. Right, then. Paperwork.”

Crowley signed on the dotted line, and a week later he was in Eden, cosying up to the dictator running the show. When he found out what they had planned for the populace, it seemed only right to accidentally slip a file into the stack of press releases he was handing over to a journalist. He didn’t quite expect the whole country to fall apart so quickly, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising. There was a lot of that going around.

* * *

**Present Day**

Crowley’s flat was stylish, dark and impersonal. It contained very little in the way of self-expression, opting instead for a clean, sleek designer feel that would tell any visitor - not that Crowley ever had visitors - very little about the man who occupied the space. The only things Crowley felt any real connection to in the space were his plants, which he berated constantly for not growing well enough, and the polished manhole cover that served as the only decoration on his wall. If - when - he was required to move on, he would transfer these few personal effects - or just the manhole cover, if time was scarce - to a new flat, just as cold and impersonal as this one, and feel no pang at the loss.

He sat in his chair - more like a throne, really, a silly extravagance that seemed to have been left behind by a previous occupant - and flicked listlessly through the TV channels. There was nothing on, nothing but news. He was sick of news, he had spent most of the last three decades interfering with the news. It had been 20 years since the end of the civil strife in Westseaxe, the newsreader was reminding him, and the country was observing a national week of remembrance. Crowley didn’t want to remember. Crowley was sick of it all.

His career had not panned out the way he’d hoped; it had been going downhill from his very first day, and he was beginning to think he was too old to put up with it for much longer. He wasn’t old, he knew that, but he didn’t have the wide-eyed idealism of his youth to fall back on. Had he ever truly believed he was doing good in this job? Perhaps not, not since he’d actually started it, not since the fall of Celestan. But he hadn’t minded whether he was doing good or not, in those early days; he had reveled in the idea that he was dealing out what had been dealt to him.

Now, he wondered if there was a way out of this. He wondered if he could ever be free.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot to post this, I'm suddenly absolutely swamped with stuff to write. Enjoy!

**27 years ago**

Aziraphale received the call just days after the border was formalised.  
“You applied for a job with our organisation a few months ago, and we’re now happy to invite you to the next stage of the process.”  
“Ah. May I ask- I understand your pool of applicants may have diminished somewhat, of late. Was I… would I have progressed if circumstances had been different?”  
“It’s impossible to know what might have happened if circumstances were different,” the voice on the other end of the line told him primly, “but you were already on the shortlist, as it happens.”  
“Oh. Oh, good. Not that it would have changed my desire to work with you, of course, but it’s very gratifying to know.”  
“Well, then. Let’s get you booked in for an assessment day.”

He attended the assessment day, hardly knowing what to expect, and endeavoured to excel without standing out. He wasn’t sure if he quite achieved that, but he seemed to have done enough, at any rate. A week after that first call, he was beginning basic training. Six weeks after that, he had his first assignment; to take his newly-issued vehicle to the small but stable dictatorship of Eden, just beyond the border of Lestern. His mission there was to observe, to pass back information, to maintain the status quo and, if necessary, to remove enemy agents that were working against Lestern’s aims.

That was what Aziraphale intended, when he arrived in Eden; it had always been a stable, if draconian, regime, and he wasn’t to interfere in any matters of human rights abuses or anything like that. The key, his employers had stressed, was to keep an eye on things as they were. It was, they assured him, an easy job for his first real assignment. Three other agents would also be stationed within the country, and he was to make contact with one of them if he needed help. They did not, however, expect him to need help. Neither did Aziraphale; he’d done well in training, and he’d been practicing for assignments just like this since the moment he’d decided that this was what he wanted to do with his life.

A week or so after his arrival in Eden, stability went right out of the window. Before he knew it, huge swathes of the population were fleeing for their lives; Aziraphale’s heart broke at the sight of a family trudging out of the capital city on foot, carrying all they could. A long trek awaited them, through treacherous desert territory, and now there were all sorts of rebels and freedom fighters to contend with, to say nothing of scattered loyalists to the regime now struggling to cling to power. The poor things didn’t stand a chance on foot.

Aziraphale gave them his service-issued vehicle, wished them luck, and assured his superiors that he’d stashed his car in a safe place the moment the trouble started.

* * *

**Present Day**

An unremarkable man walked along an unremarkable street, stopping at an unremarkable shop. He knocked on the door - two taps, then one, then two again - and it swung open.  
“Uriel,” he murmured in greeting, “how’ve you been?”  
“Busy,” Uriel replied, in a tone that did not encourage further enquiry. “You’d better go through.”

Arriving in Gabriel’s office always made him feel as though he was in trouble, or else horribly late.  
“Aziraphale! About time you showed up.” The unremarkable man kept his face carefully neutral as he checked the clock, only his eyes moving to confirm that he was, indeed, five minutes early. Let Gabriel have his little power games; the unremarkable man was not so easily cowed.  
“Ah, traffic, I’m afraid. You know how it is.”  
“All the same. Timeliness is next to godliness, Aziraphale.”  
“I’ll be sure to be on time next check-in. Was there something in particular you needed today? I was only here yesterday, so I’m afraid I haven’t much to offer you with regards to my most recent assignment-”  
“No, no, nothing like that. Orders from above. We’re just making sure we haven’t lost track of you. Though you’re hardly the type to go rogue! A more imaginative man, perhaps, but not you. Dependable, boring Aziraphale.”  
“Thank you, sir.” The unremarkable man ground the words out through gritted teeth, clinging to the satisfaction of knowing that Gabriel hated to be called ‘sir’.  
“Well, that’s all. Just making sure you’d come when we called. There’s a good boy.”

The unremarkable man left feeling like a dog who’d been made to leap through a series of hoops for nothing more than a measly, clumsy pat on the head. So, like any good dog who wanted to snap and snarl but knew better than to bite the hand that fed it, he went to the park.


	7. Chapter 6

**26.5 years ago**

Crowley stood at the bus stop on the road out of the city. Crowley’s exfil point, his promise of escape from the chaos the country had descended to with the fall of the Adamite Dynasty - and, it seemed, not only his. He turned to the only other man waiting at the bus stop and ventured a nod.  
“Well, that went down like a lead balloon, didn’t it?”  
“It all-” The man caught himself, but not before Crowley recognised the familiar language of his home nation. Well, at least, it used to belong to the one nation he called home; now that land was halved and the language shared between two new countries. “I beg your pardon?” The man tried, in halting Adamin, and Crowley shook his head. The man spoke like a spy, stood like a spy - like someone trying to avoid notice. Crowley wondered if his own occupation was so obvious. It probably was, he supposed. He had no idea what he was doing.  
“I said,” he began again, speaking Celesti himself this time, and watched the man jolt in recognition. _Yes, you should be afraid; I’m from the other side._ “That went down like a lead balloon.”  
“Oh. Yes. Yes, it did rather. It all happened so fast. Was it… your side’s doing?”   
“Yeah.” Crowley looked around at the pandemonium and couldn’t bring himself to feel proud of it. “Yeah, this was all me.”  
“Oh, dear.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes, just two strangers waiting for a bus in the middle of a rapidly-developing warzone. Not strangers, though; Crowley had been lurking around the top Adamites for a week now, and he’d seen this man. He’d been a chauffeur, Crowley thought; at least, he’d seemed to be. Now it seemed that might have been a cover. But-  
“What are you doing at a bus stop? Didn’t you have a car?”  
“Ah. Well.”  
“You did, I saw it. Nice car, too, it was as flashy as anything. Lost it, have you?”  
“I gave it away!”  
“You what?” That wasn’t what Crowley had expected, not at all. “Gave it away?”  
“Well, she was very pregnant, and they had three kids already, and they looked so scared- so I told them, here you go, take the car, just don’t let the sun go down on you here.” The stranger bit his lip. “Oh, I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.”  
“You’re from the East, aren’t you? Lestern, or whatever they’re calling it now. I don’t think you can do the wrong thing.” It seemed to Crowley that coming from that side of the broken country that had once been Celestan was enough to give you a license to kill, even without factoring in that this man was probably his opposing number, and therefore might actually have a license to kill.  
“Oh, do you really think so?” He looked so delighted that Crowley couldn’t find it in his heart to be bitter about it.  
“Be funny, wouldn’t it?” He snorted mirthlessly. “If I made the right decision for once in my life, and you made the wrong one?”  
“Mm,” the other man answered, but he didn’t seem convinced.

After another minute or so of silence, Crowley took pity on him and held out a hand.  
“I’m Cr-” He probably shouldn’t be giving out his identity to random enemy agents. “-awley. Crawley,” he finished lamely.  
“Oh! Aziraphale,” the other man told him brightly, shaking his hand with obvious enthusiasm. There was something to be said for a civil gesture in the midst of a civil war, Crowley supposed. Two civil wars, if you counted the nationwide riot breaking out around them.  
“Nice to meet you, Aziraphale. Now, I’m assuming, since you’re supposed to have a car, that this is not your pre-arranged exfiltration point.” Aziraphale startled, but made no attempt to argue that he wasn’t a spy. Perhaps he was new to the job, too. Crowley couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy, and even start to like him a little - and not just because he was incredibly good-looking. In another world, in another life, perhaps they could have been friends rather than enemies. This was not that world, but… “I, however, am expecting my people to send a transport some time in the next fifteen minutes, and I can’t help but think it would be better for both of us if you weren’t here when it arrived.”  
“Oh. Oh, quite. Very decent of you.”  
“Just don’t want to have to dispose of you today; these shoes are new, and blood does tend to get into the little crannies.” He didn’t know why he said that; it was as if he wanted to shock this angelic new spy, fresh out of training in the blessed nation of Lestern. He probably already thought Fernori were scum; let him think it. Let him be afraid, so that he would never turn his superior funding and no doubt more thorough training against Crowley.

Aziraphale went pale, and nodded faintly.  
“Quite right, of course- do you know, I don’t think my bus is coming…”

He walked away, disappearing into the smoke that had somehow already begun to permeate the city like a particularly low, dense cloud, and Crowley watched him with an awful sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Mission accomplished,” he told the driver who collected him twenty minutes later, but it didn’t feel like it. “Get us out of here.”

* * *

**Present Day**

An unremarkable man sat on a park bench, watching a grown man clamber up the slide the wrong way - much to the delight of four eleven-year olds, who immediately began trying to imitate the feat. The man, standing triumphant at the top, took a moment to sort out his hair before jumping right down on the ladder side. He winced, bending his knees experimentally as if he was afraid he’d entirely ruined them, and then warned his young friends not to try the same trick. The unremarkable man strongly suspected that they would ignore the advice, but there wasn’t much to be done about it now the idea had been put in their heads. The other man pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, waved a casual goodbye, and made his way over to the bench, apparently to retie his flashy snakeskin shoes.

  
“That looked like it hurt,” the unremarkable man commented, and the other man scowled.  
“It did. Kids’ll be alright, though. Young bones.”  
“Oh, you poor old man.” He meant it as a joke, but the taller man looked wounded. Well, neither of them were getting any younger, he supposed. It had been more than twenty-five years since Celestan had split, and they’d been playing this game since not long after that. “Do you have anywhere to be?”  
“Er. No.” The other man’s surprise was understandable; they didn’t do this often. Ask about plans. Only when one of them wanted to spend more time together, only when- “Been into the office, I take it?”  
“Yes.” The tall man’s office visits never occasioned this sort of a meeting; he never asked. It was only the unremarkable man who dared to offer, or who perhaps was too weak not to. “I thought I might pop into the old National for coffee.”  
“No-man’s land. Good idea.” The tall man paused, apparently struggling with the knot of his shoelace. “I’ll meet you there, angel.” He’d coined the nickname years ago, and it had stuck. A sort of code just for them, two men of codes.  
“After you, then. Foul fiend.” It had started as a jokey response to the angel nickname, and the tall man had preened so exquisitely over it that the unremarkable man had resolved to use it more often.

The gangly man straightened up, held his fashionably tailored jacket open like wings, and shouted “NYOOOOOOOM” as he barrelled out of the park, head down, scattering squirrels and small children alike. Heads turned as he passed; nobody even noticed an unremarkable man standing from a bench, turning to leave through an entirely different gate. Nobody ever noticed him.


	8. Chapter 7

**24 years ago**

The rain fell heavily on the land between two rivers. It had been a part of Celestan, once, but had so far failed to be truly claimed by either side. Neither Lestern nor Fernor seemed to want the trouble of governing it, let alone defending it - but neither wanted the other to have it, either.

That was why Crowley was wading through chest-high water, a small child on his shoulders, making grim, steady progress against the current to reach the rest of the family, who’d been hauled into a rescue boat. The mother was sobbing as she took the toddler, the father offering him a hand to get into the boat.  
“Thanks, but no - there are more people out there.” They exchanged a solemn look that acknowledged the likelihood that any such people were dead by now, swept away by the torrent, and then Crowley turned away before he, too, could be hauled bodily into the boat.

Halfway down the street, he lost his footing, and by the time he regained it he was somewhere else entirely. He clung to a lamppost, trying to keep himself upright for long enough to get his bearings, and spotted a man with an umbrella sitting on the flimsy plastic roof of a bus stop.  
“Angel,” he called, and hoisted himself up while the other agent was looking for the source of the sound. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”  
“I could ask you the same question,” Aziraphale told him, and then, “you’d probably give me the same answer.”  
“Help with the humanitarian effort. So the higher-ups can say they sent men, with the heavily-redacted paper trail to prove it. Or, if it looks like it’s more trouble than it’s worth, they can say they don’t have a single man in the area.”  
“Yes. I do hope you’re not all they sent.”  
“Charming.” He got himself settled at last, shivering as Aziraphale shifted the umbrella to cover them both. “Might as well have been. My lot have set up at the top of a high-rise and they’re planning to wait it out. Soldiers, too. Everyone we sent.”  
“How strange. My side stopped the other side of the river, and are likely to arrive just, lamentably, too late to be of much help.” Aziraphale’s mouth twisted unpleasantly; Crowley didn’t like seeing that expression on his enemy’s face.  
“You look pretty dry,” he pointed out, and immediately felt bad about it, but Aziraphale only sighed.  
“I was on one of the rescue boats, pulling people out. Then there wasn’t room, so I said I’d be all right here.” He looked around himself at the rising water. “I do hope I’m not wrong about that.”  
“Yeah.” Crowley shivered again. “It’s bloody cold, that water.”  
“Worst flooding in ten years, apparently,” Aziraphale told him, and then he seemed to really look at him. “Oh, Crawley, you’re drenched - you must be freezing! Here.”

He wriggled out of his coat and draped it around Crowley’s shoulders, wet as they were. Somehow, despite the icy water still trickling down his back and plastering his hair to his head, he felt warm.  
“We can’t be here together when the flooding goes down,” he pointed out, reluctantly, “or when someone in a boat with spaces comes along. What would we say, _no, sorry, I’ll take the next one, you take him?_ Ridiculous.”  
“Oh. Oh, I suppose not. Well, it’s my turn to get wet.”  
“Don’t be daft. There’s no sense in both of us getting soaked.” Already, having lowered his umbrella to remove his coat, Aziraphale looked damper than he had when Crowley had stumbled across him. “Still, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” _Stay, he didn’t say, I’m enjoying your company._  
“Yes. Yes, quite. The sun might come out at any moment.” Aziraphale frowned. “I can’t believe your side didn’t help.”  
“I can’t believe _your_ side wouldn’t help.”  
“I expect it from _my_ side,” they both admitted together, and Crowley scoffed.  
“I suppose we’re not so different after all.”  
“Perhaps not. Two sides of the same coin, hm?”  
“Two sides of the same country.”  
“Ah, but _your_ side rebelled.”  
“Did we?” Crowley hadn’t. Crowley would have happily stayed in Ghadon, in Celestan, for the rest of his life if the whole world hadn’t fallen apart around him. “Oh, well. Old news, now.” He handed the coat back to Aziraphale with a little twinge of regret. It had been warm, just a little. “I’m going to go and look for survivors.”  
“In this? Crawley, you must realise-”  
“Even if I only save one,” Crowley told him sadly, “I’ve still got one.” Then he slipped from the shelter and was swept away.

* * *

**Present Day**

The unremarkable man took a shortcut to the café, a favoured bolthole of his even when he wasn’t meeting Crowley. Here, the lights were a little dimmer than elsewhere, and people conversed in low voices without suspicion or fear. Here, the two nations that had once been Celestan ceased to matter, the border a mere technicality far removed from the mundane pleasures of life.

In another world, perhaps, the unremarkable man might have met a romantic partner in a little place like this. He might have sat across from a paramour and spoken of love, of dreams, of the future. He might have unburdened his heart, and if he was very, very lucky he might even have found that his future aligned with another’s.

Instead, he waited for Crowley, whom in another world he might have shared a future with. They spoke of dreams, occasionally, and the future more rarely still, but they never spoke of love. They could never, ever speak of love.

He ordered himself a cake - Crowley never took so much as a cup of coffee here, so there was no point in ordering for two - and settled quietly at a corner table, watching the people around him out of the corner of his eye as he raised his cup to his lips.


	9. Chapter 8

**22.5 years ago**

They hadn’t planned to meet.

The unremarkable man stood silent, blending into the crowd hanging on the speaker’s every words. Unwitting witnesses to what Aziraphale knew was about to happen. The man on the stage was talking about unity, about peace, about how Lestern and Fernor had, not so very long ago, been one land. How their people had been one people. How they could be again, if they just took each other’s hands and believed.

He made eye contact with his opposite number, just for a moment, and caught an almost imperceptible nod. Turning his attention back to the speaker, he didn’t have to wait long before Crawley was at his side, much more subdued than usual.  
“What are you doing here?”  
“Crowd control,” Aziraphale told him, “I’m afraid there’s about to be a bit of a mess.”  
“I know, but you- wait. Your side are going to make a mess?”  
“Yes. How do you know about it? Why are you here, anyway, Crawley?”  
“Crowley. It’s Crowley. My name.”  
“Oh, I do apologise. Why-?”  
“Crowd control,” Crowley told him solemnly. “I’m afraid there’s about to be a bit of a mess.”  
“What? Who?” He turned his head just enough to see Crowley nod pointedly in the speaker’s direction. “Oh. Oh, my side, too.”  
“What did he say to get them all so worked up?” Crowley asked quietly, and Aziraphale sighed.  
“Be kind to one another.”  
“Oh, yeah, that’d do it.”

Two shots rang out; the speaker crumpled to the ground. There was a moment of horrified silence, just long enough for an unremarkable man and his opposite number to exchange looks. Was that my side’s doing, or yours? Then the screaming began, and they had to turn away. There was work to be done, and they could only hope that their respective sides didn’t notice the enemy agents in the crowd.

By the time the panic died down, the unremarkable man had a new assignment, and no way of knowing when he’d see his rival again.

* * *

**Present Day**

Aziraphale was already sitting in a darkened corner of the former Celestan National Gallery’s basement café when a tall man in dark glasses walked in, knocking a cup from a nearby table to shatter on the ground and stepping smartly backwards before anyone could identify him as the cause of the smash. Heads turned, a few people jeered, and there was a smattering of sarcastic applause before everybody turned back to their conversations. By then, the tall man had already scanned the whole café in a swift glance and was heading towards the corner table.  
“Must you make such a scene?” Aziraphale scolded quietly, and Crowley lowered his sunglasses to favour him with a deeply unimpressed look as he sat down.  
“Do I question your methods?”  
“Everyone was looking at you, Crowley!”  
“Everyone was looking _near_ me, and now I know nobody working for my side is in here. How about you?”  
“We’re quite safe. My side like to make a fuss about not having time to frequent even the loveliest little café.”  
“Hm. Well, it’ll do.”  
“I thought it best I got something when I arrived, to avoid drawing undue attention. Will you be having anything?”  
“Nah, I’ve sat down now.”  
“You’re sure?”  
“Yeah, I’ll just enjoy watching you eat that- er, whatever you call it, the little cakey thing.”  
“It’s millionaire’s shortbread. Would you like to taste?”

Crowley’s mind went blank for a moment, eyeing the crumbs Aziraphale was dabbing from his lips even now. _Would I like a taste?_ They both knew the answer; Aziraphale couldn’t have that bad a memory - he was a spy, for Hell’s sake - he had to remember how Crowley felt about him. But Aziraphale had made his position clear, then - and Crowley might have been tempted to take a stupid risk, risk a relationship that could get him killed, but not if Aziraphale didn’t want it. Never if Aziraphale didn’t want it.

The cake. He meant the cake.  
“No, thanks, angel. Really. I’m fine.”


	10. Chapter 9

**22 years ago**

They shared an evening meal exactly once, one slightly hazy night when they were both on assignment in a city rich with history. They'd run into each other a few times by then, because as it turned out, the two countries that had once been Celestan still shared most of the same security concerns, even five years on from the schism. Aziraphale was enjoying a quiet night at the pub, with a glass of red wine far too good for the establishment it found itself in, when Crowley stormed in hoping to get absolutely obliterated. He'd arrived in the country two nights previously, wormed his way into the defence minister's good graces, and attempted to stir up paranoia about a distant nation. As it turned out, the minister in question was already quite paranoid enough on her own, and was planning to pour all the country's resources into monitoring the situation with a view to declaring war. Just to cap it off, she was planning to introduce a mandatory period of national service - pouring fresh-faced sixteen year olds into the war machine to be ground up and spat out in pieces. Crowley felt utterly disgusted, and he felt even worse for his part in the decision.

His plan had been to get so drunk he couldn't even remember his own name - real or fabricated - but then, as he ordered the house paint-thinner, Aziraphale called out to him.  
"You're not drinking that on an empty stomach, are you?" He frowned. "Not that I recommend drinking it at all."  
"Well, I've had a shit day. What do you recommend?"  
"Seafood," Aziraphale replied, "there's a delightful little restaurant down the road, they're doing simply wonderful things with oysters."  
"Never eaten an oyster," Crowley admitted, "always looked slimy to me."  
"Oh, well, then. Let me tempt you - you'll soon come over to my side." But no sooner had he said it than he turned pale. "Oh - no. I didn't mean- just a figure of speech, I don't mean you'll defect to my _side_ -"  
"Let's see how good those oysters are," Crowley joked easily, trying to calm the flustered agent. He, himself, felt better already. "Lead the way."

They ate at the restaurant Aziraphale had recommended, and then they stayed for a couple of drinks, and Crowley was just a little tipsy - not drunk, definitely not drunk, but just light-headed enough to stop worrying so much about what his side would think of him drinking with the enemy. He was just a little tipsy when they stumbled back out into the night, and Aziraphale tugged at his arm and led him down a dark side street, and Crowley tugged right back and got himself neatly sandwiched between Aziraphale and a wall.  
“Crowley, what are-?”  
“I wanna - wanna kiss you, angel. ‘S alright?”  
“Well- I mean- we probably shouldn’t-” But he didn’t say no, the one thing he never said was no, and he gave Crowley that hopeful look he gave him sometimes when he wanted a favour, and Crowley- well, Crowley only had so much willpower. If he was allowed one bright point in his miserable life, let this be it. He tugged once more on Aziraphale’s lapels, and Aziraphale stumbled easily forwards, and their lips met.

It ended all too soon. Crowley had to nudge Aziraphale backwards slightly so he could get his thoughts together, and the moment the contact was broken Aziraphale turned pale.  
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t- I shouldn’t have- oh, you- you wily fiend!” And he turned to hurry away, but Crowley called out, the only words he could force from his lips.  
“We’re all right, though, yeah?”  
“Oh. Yes. Yes, we’re quite all right. Always, my dear.” And then he hurried away down the street.

Crowley stood there in the shadows, lips tingling, head spinning, and realised two things. Firstly, that he had just done something he had wanted to do since the first time he set eyes on Aziraphale, nearly five years ago. And secondly, that he could never, ever risk doing it again.

* * *

**Present Day**

The unremarkable man drifted home from the café, feeling oddly disconnected and aimless. This was happening more and more frequently, mostly as he walked away from Crowley. Increasingly, walking away from Crowley felt wrong - and walking into the bookshop that hid his own side’s local base hadn’t felt right in a long time, either. Perhaps it never had.

Now, even as he spent more and more time with Crowley, it was becoming harder to justify their meetings to himself. They weren’t just meeting to exchange jobs or information any more - not that that was something either of their superiors would have forgiven - but to share cakes, or tea, or go to lunch. They never shared anything more involved than sandwiches, by some unspoken agreement, but they certainly spent prolonged periods together in casual, non-professional settings. They were behaving almost like friends.

They couldn’t be friends; they _weren’t_ friends. But their meetings were swiftly becoming the high points of the unremarkable man’s life. If he was honest, they had been for a long time. Crowley was the only person in the world who made him feel as if he could just be himself; not a mask, not a false image of normality, but _Aziraphale_. When Crowley called him angel, it didn’t feel like a code name, or a taunt, the way even his own name did when someone like Gabriel or Uriel used it. It just felt _right_. It felt _true_ , somehow.

So little in his life was true. But Crowley was.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Some sort of plot? Surely not...

**20 years ago**

Crowley was crusading around Westseaxe, a little country to the west of Fernor, causing trouble. It was his main job, causing trouble, and he was good at it. He’d assumed the guise of a minor warlord and was going around challenging other unsavoury types to turf wars and competitions to cause the most general unrest. Head Office hadn’t been spectacularly pleased with that approach, but since he’d kept his face out of the news they supposed it would do. It was serving their purposes, after all - the country was far too busy trying to lower its crime rate, now, to even think about annexing Fernor - and Crowley’s only real complaint about the situation was that the chaos didn’t seem to be sticking. Every time he moved on from an area, it seemed to calm down much faster than he would have expected.

It should, perhaps, have been unsurprising to find out that Aziraphale was behind the sudden dampening of the fires Crowley had set.  
“Is that you, angel?” He called out, as a Peacekeeper in full riot gear and helmet tried to talk his friends down, and-  
“…Fiend?” It was the only name they’d ever shared that was safe to use when they were working under assumed identities. Crowley rolled his balaclava up so his face could be seen.  
“Go and amuse yourselves for a few minutes, guys, I know him.” His gang of thugs grumbled, but wandered off, and Crowley dragged Aziraphale into a quiet alleyway. “What on earth are you doing here?”  
“What are _you_ doing here?”  
“Oh, you know. Spreading foment, or something. Stirring things up a bit. Keeping this lot busy so they don’t invade. What about you?”  
“I’m fomenting _peace_. Trying to calm the situation, so this country doesn’t go the way of Eden. Do you mean to say we’ve just been cancelling each other out all this time?”  
“Seems to happen a lot,” Crowley pointed out. “Maybe we should just come to some sort of arrangement.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, if we’re just cancelling each other out, we might as well not bother. Knock off and go home when we both get assigned to the same area, that sort of thing. Help each other out.”  
“Help each other-?” Aziraphale scoffed. “We’re on _different sides_ , Crowley. We’re _enemies_!”  
“Oh, well, now my feelings are hurt.” Crowley turned away. “Just think about it, while you’re slogging through the swamplands making peace among men.”  
“There’s no trouble in the swamplands,” Aziraphale protested, and Crowley turned to raise an eyebrow at him.  
“There wasn’t _yesterday._ ” He gestured vaguely at his own trousers, which were tinged with greenish-brown mud up to the knee. “I think you’ll find there’s rather a lot going on there now.”  
“Oh, really, Crowley-”  
“Give it some thought!” And before he could say anything stupid, like _stay safe_ or _be careful_ or _I’ll miss you_ , he walked away.

* * *

**Present Day**

“What d’you want?” Ligur grunted, taking a long drag from his cigarette.  
“Must you lurk in the doorway like that?”  
“Yeah.” He exhaled, a long plume of smoke directly into Michael’s face. She didn’t flinch; it was very disappointing.

Truth was, Ligur had never much cared for the executives on either side of the border; hadn’t much cared for any of them when there hadn’t been a border, either. He and Michael went way back, all the way to special forces boot camp back when they’d been on the same side, and they’d been lucky not to meet face-to-face during all the fighting that had turned one country into two. She outranked him, on the Lestern side of things - not by much, but just by enough for him to rankle at the disparity. They both had much the same background, the same experience, but Ligur had joined the rebels at the earliest possible opportunity and spent a while in the militias before making his way over to the intelligence side of things. Otherwise, he’d be running things, the same as Michael, and probably making a better job of it than either she or Beelzebub were on their respective sides.

Now, Michael sighed.  
“Information. There’s rather a lot of it leaking to your side from ours, it seems.”  
“Is there.” It wasn’t a question. “Do they know we’ve been meeting?”  
“No. But they are asking questions. Somebody’s got to take a fall, if you know what I mean. Someone on my side, and - unless you particularly want the blame - someone on yours. Seems there’s quite a lot of confidential chatter going both ways.”  
“Right.” He thought about it for a moment. “Frame job, is it?”  
“Someone believable. Perhaps somebody who’s had the opportunity to meet with enemy agents.” She frowned thoughtfully. “We’ve an agent stationed in this area, I believe. Unremarkable record. I don’t remember if I’ve even met him. One medal, for long service. No promotions. No particular friends. Disposable.”  
“In this area?” Ligur thought for a moment. “I know just the guy. Pain in everyone’s arse, he is. And he’s based not far from here, on a long leash - nobody wants to supervise him too closely. Always trying to present _ideas_ for how to _improve_ things.” He smirked. “Not a huge leap to suggest he’s been getting them from your side.”  
“Fine, then. We’ll fabricate something to suggest that Aziraphale’s been meeting with…?”  
“Crowley,” Ligur supplied, though he suspected she already knew who was operating in the area. It was right at the heart of her turf, after all.  
“Aziraphale’s been meeting with Crowley. Of course, they’ll deny ever seeing each other, which will only make them seem guiltier. That should keep the heat off us for a little while.”  
“And the traitors? What will your side do to this… Aziraphale?”  
“Oh, he’ll have to be disposed of. I expect your side will do the same?”  
“You expect right. So that ties up the loose ends.” He held out a hand, and Michael shook it firmly.

Ligur took one last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out on the shop door.  
“Got a room?”  
“A holiday home.” She grimaced. “Quaint, but they took cash and didn’t ask questions.”  
“Well then. Address?” She told him, and he memorised it. “I’ll see you there in twenty minutes.”  
“I’ll be there in twenty-five.” Michael gave him a deliberate once-over. “You’ll have time to shower.”  
“I take long showers,” Ligur pointed out, as if she didn’t know that. “You might have to join me.”  
“Perhaps I will.” She nodded formally, a dismissal, but didn’t move, forcing him to brush past her as he left. It was all part of their little game, an affair that had been going on for years and would likely continue until one of them betrayed the other or was killed.

The lives of two expendable agents were a small price to pay for that.


	12. Chapter 11

**18 years ago**

The old National Opera House was in Fernor, once the new boundaries had been drawn, but it was very close to an unpatrolled section of the border and, as such, functioned as a sort of neutral zone for all sorts of people. Families divided by the schism took seats at the back of the stalls and caught up through whispers behind programmes, old friends reunited in the queues for the toilets, and - on occasion - interested patrons of the arts dropped in unexpectedly to watch from the private boxes.  
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. This is the box I usually use,” Aziraphale declared loudly, upon opening the door to box five. “I usually ask them to keep it empty for me, but I must have forgotten.”  
“It _is_ the best box in the house,” Crowley agreed with equal volume, “but there’s plenty of room for two. You won’t even know I’m here.”  
“Oh, how kind of you. I do find fellow art-lovers to be the most generous of strangers.” And with this loud proclamation, Aziraphale let himself into the box, closed the door behind him, and took a seat to Crowley’s right. The empty seat between them seemed to hum with static electricity, tempting him to reach out, but Crowley kept his hands to himself.

“Well, here we are. How have you been, foul fiend?”  
“Can’t complain,” Crowley admitted, and then grimaced as the opening bars of _Queen of Rhapsodies_ drifted up from the orchestra pit for the third time. “I’d be happier if they’d just get on with it.”  
“Oh, have you seen this one? It’s one of my favourites of the season. The death scene at the end, that gorgeous lament-”  
“I prefer the funny ones,” Crowley groused, as the conductor called the whole thing to a halt and prepared to start again. “What have you got for me?”  
“I’m being sent to the North. The borderlands, you know, there have been a few skirmishes. I’m supposed to write some letters to the local press, and of course there’s a code to insert. I’ve already drafted them, but - well, you know how cold it gets up there at this time of year.”  
“Yes, I do.” Crowley sighed as the lights dimmed and the orchestra began to play in earnest. “They’re starting? Not much of a crowd, is it? We’ve usually got more cover.”  
“I do believe we’re the only ones here,” Aziraphale admitted. “Still, at least it’s dark.”

They listened quietly as the soprano began her opening aria.  
“Screechy,” Crowley commented, just as Aziraphale said, “Jolly good, isn’t she?” They both grimaced and looked away.

“As it happens,” Crowley began, trying to sound casual, “there are a couple of people I’m supposed to menace in that part of the world. Toss you for it?”  
“I beg your-” Aziraphale’s eyes focused on the coin in Crowley’s hand. “Oh. Oh, very well.” Crowley launched the coin into the air, and Aziraphale watched it turn over. “Heads.”  
“Tails,” Crowley told him smugly, and tucked the coin back into his pocket. “ _You_ get to go to the borderlands.”  
“Oh, bother. Fine.”

Abruptly, the lights in the box and on the stage came on; Crowley and Aziraphale turned towards the silent orchestra, feeling suddenly very exposed.  
“You, up there! How are you enjoying the show?” The conductor seemed, if anything, more cross than curious, but that had never got in the way of Aziraphale offering an encouraging word or two.  
“Oh, it’s splendid. Jolly good!”  
“And what does your friend think?”  
“Oh, he’s not my friend! We- we don’t know each other. We just, ah, stumbled into the same box-”   
Crowley cut him off before he could become any _less_ convincing. “I think you should get on with the show!” _And I don’t much like the audience participation bit,_ he thought to himself.  
“I’m not sure there’s any point. It’s going to take some kind of miracle for anyone to come and see it.” The conductor sighed, then miserably took up his baton once more.

The lights went down, and when Crowley’s eyes adjusted he found Aziraphale giving him a terribly hopeful look.  
“All right, fine, I’ll put in a good word for it with my informants in the local press. My treat.”

* * *

**Present Day**

Crowley whistled a cheery little tune to himself as he worked, high above the city. It wasn’t particularly tuneful - he’d never been able to carry a melody with any real conviction - but with his hard hat on his head and his hi-vis jacket rendering him all but invisible to those below him, it was hard not to feel cheerful.

He paused in the middle of tying a complex knot as he noticed movement below him. It was early, barely light out, so he looked down to see who else was up at such an ungodly hour and was barely surprised to realise it was one of his colleagues. It wasn’t unheard of for more than one agent to be assigned to the same patch, supposedly in case of need but really to check up on one another. Well, Ligur hadn’t seen him - hadn’t even glanced up - and Crowley was in no hurry to have his good mood soured by dull conversation. He turned his attention back to the telephone wires, only to realise that Ligur had stopped. Ligur was lurking in the doorway of a rather fancy little shop, smoking a cigarette and waiting for something.

Well, it was probably Dagon. Ligur might be one of Fernor’s favoured few agents, the ones who were given proper equipment and given much more leeway when it came to making reports, but he did still have to check in occasionally. He’d be meeting Dagon, who handled all the agents stationed in Lestern, and Crowley might well get to hear how the other half lived. He pulled out his wire cutters and carefully selected another pair of wires, snipping neatly through them and crossing them over before retying them with a double fisherman’s knot. The whole thing was looking rather wonderfully chaotic by the time he glanced down again to see that Ligur was no longer alone.

He wasn’t talking to Dagon, though. Crowley wasn’t an expert on the Lesterni intelligence service’s personnel, but he did know a little about their top executives. All domestic intelligence went through G, a brash, square-jawed sort of bloke with delusions of grandeur. Foreign intelligence went through U, a quiet but no less intimidating person. And in the shadows, keeping the whole thing going, spinning all the plates, was M. M, who - against all logic and reason - insisted that the executive tier maintained a strict dress code of pastel-coloured suits. They stood out; they were unusual, and instantly recognisable to those who knew what to look for. And if Crowley wasn’t very much mistaken, somebody dressed exactly like an Lesterni intelligence executive was standing in the street below him, talking to Ligur in a voice too low for Crowley to hear.

His curious nature urged him to try to get closer, to listen - but the more cautious, _sensible_ part of him insisted he stay quiet and try not to draw any attention to himself. Climbing down and disappearing was too risky - that was bound to make one of the two very alert agents on the street corner look his way. And Ligur would not want to be caught talking to the enemy; Crowley had no doubt that Ligur would gut him like a fish and hurl his body into the nearest river rather than be exposed. He had only one option; to stay on his precarious perch, try to keep his face out of sight, and pretend to be a real telecommunications engineer doing something _useful_.

He sighed heavily and set to work. At least, thanks to his previous efforts, there was plenty to fix.


	13. Chapter 12

**16 years ago**

An unremarkable man sat in the back of a police van, his hands cuffed in front of him, and cursed quietly under his breath. It had been a terrible idea to go out after curfew in this miserable excuse for a dictatorship, and a worse idea to venture into disputed territory. It was just that they sold a particularly lovely pastry in a little shop just down the road from where he’d been arrested - because arrested he had been, and now it was anyone’s guess whether he’d be executed or simply imprisoned for life. They didn’t do things by half measures around here.

The doors at the front opened and he heard two people climb in, wasting no time in putting the van into gear and driving away. They drove for some time, the man in the passenger seat talking cheerfully about how best to dispose of their prisoner; the unremarkable man was just wondering if there was any hope at all of his employers getting him out of trouble somehow, rather than disavowing him and leaving him to his fate, when the van stopped abruptly.  
“Why’ve we stopped?” The passenger asked, and then the unremarkable man heard a series of thuds. The doors at the back of the van opened, and there stood a policeman in full riot gear.  
“Get out,” he told the unremarkable man, and when he hesitated the policeman reached out and tugged him forward by the chain linking his wrists together.  
“I’d rather not,” the unremarkable man admitted, “if you’re going to shoot me, you might as well do it in here.”  
“This is a bloody rescue, you idiot,” the policeman hissed, flipping his visor up to reveal-  
“Crowley!” He quailed under his adversary’s glare. _Good lord, nobody has ever looked so good in that uniform._ “I mean- er- it’s you!”  
“Yes, it’s me. Get out of the van, I need the space.”

Aziraphale hopped out of the van and allowed Crowley to unlock the handcuffs.  
“Help me strip him,” Crowley grunted, and Aziraphale realised there was an unconscious officer at his feet, presumably the passenger from the van. They got all the clothes off him, and then Crowley turned his back. “Get changed.”  
“Into- into the uniform?”  
“If you want to get home without being arrested again, yes. I’ll drop you at the border, you don’t want to be here with all this going on.”  
“I’m supposed to-”  
“Survive, presumably. Trust me, you’re going to get more intel from the refugees in the camps than you would here anyway. Why didn’t you break yourself out of those cuffs? One of those nifty little gadgets your side hand out?”  
“Oh, I’ve had my gadget privileges revoked. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to use them for _frivolous humanitarian causes._ ” That had stung, rather; it wasn’t as if he’d ever been given much to work with in the first place, but the scolding hurt.  
“Bastards. I always carry two sets of picks, myself. Well, get on with it.”  
“Oh. Right. Yes.” Aziraphale hurried to change into the other officer’s gear as Crowley flipped his visor down and began cuffing his former colleague.  
“New guy. Nobody will recognise him. And he’s too much of a liability to leave on the police payroll - terrifying man, far too into all the killing and torture stuff. Could be running things around here by next week if I left him. So this is really just convenient for me.”  
“Right. Yes. Of course.” Newly dressed in riot gear, he helped Crowley lift the unconscious officer into the van and left him there in his underwear. “Drop me at the border, you said?”  
“Yes. And I suggest you cross it. Bring your clothes, you’ll want them on the other side.”

They drove in silence for a while, Aziraphale trying not to vomit as Crowley sped over the lumps and bumps of damaged roads.  
“I’m thinking of switching departments,” he admitted, as they approached the border. “Switching to domestic operations for a while. Do you know, they still include Fernor in that definition?”  
“I didn’t, and I don’t think I should,” Crowley told him sternly, “but noted. I might find myself in that sort of area myself, as it happens. Bored of all this.” He gestured vaguely at a sign reading _Enemies of the Grand High Emperor Will Be Sho_ t. “Could do with a change of pace.”  
“Oh!” Aziraphale suppressed a delighted little wiggle with difficulty; only years of practice at being the least noteworthy person in any given room allowed to suppress his happiness at such news. It wasn’t, of course, hard to be the least noteworthy person in the room - well, van - when its other occupant was Crowley.  
“Yeah. Anyway. Can’t stop here, rebels have been taking potshots, so you’re going to have to jump out and run when I turn the van around. Ready?”  
“What? N-!” With a screech of brakes, the van went into a spin. Somehow, in the middle of it all, Aziraphale managed to fumble the door open as a hand on his back encouraged him out.

The unremarkable man hit the ground and rolled, glad of his stolen body armour as he sat up to watch the van disappear back in the direction it came. Then he got up and ran the last few hundred metres to the border, spluttering to a halt the moment he reached the cover of a nearby copse of trees.

Ten minutes later, he had shed his body armour and was emerging - ragged, exhausted, and back in his own clothes - into the light of one of the many refugee camps on the safer side of the border. It was time to put his ear to the ground.

* * *

**Present Day**

It had only been two days since their meeting in the park when the unremarkable man's phone rang. He’d been about to head out, actually, just to keep the neighbours from wondering what he did in his little flat all day, but the ringing had interrupted him on his way to get his coat. He left it on the hook, next to the hat and scarf he’d never worn and didn’t remember acquiring, and picked up the handset.  
“Angel. It’s me. We need to talk.”  
“We spoke yesterday. You never call me. Whatever’s happened-”  
“Meet me where we met last time. You met my friends. You remember? There, in an hour. Do you remember where that was?”  
“Yes, at- ah. Yes. But- whatever’s happened, I’m sure it’s not the end of the world.”  
“Actually… it might be.”  
“But-” The line was dead; the unremarkable man could only hope that Crowley wasn’t.


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13 - unlucky for some...
> 
> (Trigger Warning for reference to suicide - specifically as preferable to the alternative if Aziraphale and Crowley are caught together. If that's going to be harmful for you to read, please skip to the line break and just read the second section.)

**15 years ago**

“I’m glad you asked me to meet. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”  
“Sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger. Well. Not- I mean- it’s what we do, isn’t it?”  
“Only professionally.” Aziraphale smiled thinly. “What can I do for you?”  
“I’ve, ah. I’ve written it down. Walls have ears.” He peered over his sunglasses at their surroundings; not a wall in sight. That was one of the perks of meeting in the park; no walls. “Ducks have ears,” he amended hastily. “Do ducks have ears?”  
“I assume-”  
“Must do. That’s how they hear other ducks.”  
“I assume,” Aziraphale repeated, though he was smiling properly now, “that you had a reason for calling me here. The, ah, the thing you’ve written down? It sounds serious.”  
“Ngk.” With that incredibly eloquent pronouncement, he handed over the piece of paper. Aziraphale opened it, and read it, and Crowley couldn’t look at him.  
“Absolutely not.”  
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t-”  
“It’s completely out of the question! If they caught me-”  
“Our side can’t afford them, not… not working ones, there’s rumours the last guy who asked for one still roams the city at nights, frothing at the mouth.”  
“I’m not- what, literally? Literally frothing?” Aziraphale shook his head. “Regardless, I’m not- a _cyanide pill,_ Crowley. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It would kill you!”  
“It’s not for- Look, if they catch us… I don’t know about your side of the border, but my lot don’t send rude notes.”  
“I can’t believe you’d ask me to do that. I’ll talk to you when you’re ready to be rational.”

And just like that, Aziraphale was gone, the most remarkable man he’d ever met blending effortlessly back into the meagre crowds wandering the park. Crowley stayed only long enough to ensure that the slip of paper Aziraphale had thrown into the lake was soaked beyond the point of being legible, and then he stalked away in the opposite direction, making no attempt to hide his misery and anger. He’d thought Aziraphale understood the position he was in, he’d thought he understood Crowley, but Aziraphale wouldn’t even listen to him. He felt as though he’d bared his very heart and had it thrown back in his face. _My lot don’t send rude notes. If they catch us together, if we can’t get away, I’d rather be dead._ But he had no escape route, no quick exit. Aziraphale had refused him that small measure of dignity.

Fine. He didn’t need him, anyway. And with that lie ringing hollow in his head, he left the park.

* * *

**Present Day**

An unremarkable man sat on a park bench, seemingly engrossed in a newspaper. Another man walked past him without stopping, walking fast, and the unremarkable man took his time in standing up and following. It was a short journey, which ended when Crowley stepped into a phone box and Aziraphale stepped into the one next to it. Each picked up the receiver, speaking quietly through the missing pane that connected the two booths.  
“Hey.”  
“Hello.”  
“...So, this is awkward,” Crowley admitted.  
“Isn’t it always?”  
“No, not the- I mean… look, I found something out, and I feel like I should tell you.”  
“Right.”  
“But it’s- it’s not like our usual grey areas. I _really_ shouldn’t be telling you this, and you definitely can’t tell anyone else.”  
“Then don’t-”  
“You’ve got a leak,” Crowley blurted out, “your people.”  
“What?”  
“Probably a saboteur. Going by the stuff we’ve been getting, the stuff they’ve presumably been giving us… yeah.”  
“Then of course I must tell-”  
“Think about it,” Crowley interrupted, lowering his dark glasses to peer at Aziraphale. “If they start looking for links, what are they going to find?”  
“Well, I don’t kn-” He faltered. _“Us.”_  
“Never mind that they’ll want to know how you know.”  
“Oh.” Aziraphale thought about that for a moment. “Fuck.”  
“Quite.”  
“Do you know who it is?”  
“No. Might be safer not to know, anyway. Just act natural and be careful, yeah?” Crowley turned away, scanning the street in a false show of boredom. “Don’t draw any attention and don’t trust anyone.”  
“If I didn’t know better,” Aziraphale told him lightly, “I’d think you were concerned for my welfare.”  
“I just don’t want to have to deal with someone new on my case, that’s all.”  
“Naturally, my dear. Well, then. We mustn’t be seen together.”  
Crowley nodded, but neither of them moved.

At length, Crowley spoke again.  
“What are you going to do about it? The leak, I mean.”  
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about it. Not just yet. We’ll simply have to stay away from one another until we can be sure we won’t be spotted.”  
“But-”  
“Perhaps this is simply the way it has to be. The way it was always meant to end. Take care of yourself, Crowley.” He raised his voice, ashamed of how gently that had come out. “I do hope we’ll meet again, but I’ve got to get a wiggle on.”  
“What?”  
“I said, I hope we’ll-”  
“No, I got that bit, it was the _wiggle-on.”_

The unremarkable man replaced the receiver and left the phone box, making his way through a street filled with other unremarkable people. He left the most remarkable person of all standing in a phone box, receiver held uselessly to his ear.


	15. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, this chapter. Quite a lot going on in this chapter.

**12 years ago**

Aziraphale had spent his whole life being unremarkable, but there were some situations in which one simply had to stand up and be counted. This was one of them, and he would be damned if he let things go on as they were just because of some misguided belief that he needed to stay in the shadows.

“So you say all sorts of ordinary people are performing in this fundraiser?”  
“To help those displaced in the unrest in Eden, yes. Adamites, mostly, though a few hundred people belonging to the Eve sect are also still displaced.” Steve Glozier, one of the organisers, smiled tightly. “We’re hoping to get them out of the camps they’re living in now and into what you might call proper housing, with all the mod cons. The sort of thing they had before the trouble started.”  
“And you want me to participate?”  
“We think you’re the perfect person to encourage others by signing up,” Mark Harmony, the other organiser, confirmed. “If people see you have agreed to perform - a perfectly normal man, not particularly known for any sort of talent - they’ll feel more confident in signing up to contribute their own hidden talents.”  
“Oh, well, in that case, I’m sure I could- I could-” It came to him like a lightning bolt of inspiration. “I used to be a dab hand at magic tricks.”  
“Perfect!” Glozier clapped his hands together. “That would be perfect.”  
“You will have to audition, of course. Just a matter of form, due process and so on,” Harmony warned, but Aziraphale had already warmed to the idea. It had been such a long time since he’d had the chance to show off his magic tricks, and for such a good cause-  
“I’ll do it.” He beamed. “I’ll be glad to help.”

The audition was being held in the utmost secrecy, in an old warehouse on the outskirts of the city in Terra where most of the refugees from Eden had ended up. Since Aziraphale had been stationed there for nearly three years now - since shortly after Crowley had asked him for a cyanide pill - it was no hardship to pack up his old magic case and the three forms of ID he needed for the audition and walk out there. It was a hot, dry, dusty sort of space, and he had to stifle a cough as he walked in. Crowley had always had trouble in these sorts of conditions; that was the sort of job he and Aziraphale tended to trade between themselves. He didn’t know why the thought that he was going where Crowley couldn’t follow sent a shiver down his spine, but it didn’t matter. They hadn’t spoken in three years, anyway.

Glozier spotted him first. “Ah, there you are, Mr. Fell. Have you brought your documentation?”  
“Oh. Yes, yes - and my bag of tricks, as it were.”  
“Please hand over your ID.” Harmony and Glozier smiled in eerie unison, and Aziraphale forced himself to return the smile as he passed them his case.  
“You’ll find it all in there.”  
“It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Fell, really.” Harmony’s smile had turned cold. “You’ve been really helpful. Shame you’ve got to die, really.”

Aziraphale held up his hands in polite bemusement.  
“I’m sorry. Die?”  
“We have what we needed from you. A foreign agent’s identity papers, allowing us to access your organisation’s funds. Now all that remains is to tie up the loose end.”  
“Oh, dear. Is that how it is?” Aziraphale sighed, doing his best to hide his shock at being exposed for what he was. At least that wouldn’t come as any surprise to his accomplice. “Rose?”  
“Here, Mr. Fell.” A young woman stepped out of the shadows, her gun trained firmly on the two charity organisers.  
“What’s going on?”  
“This is Detective Inspector Rose Montgomery, of the International Charity Fraud Squad, and I’m afraid you two have been - what was that charming phrase? - played for suckers.”

Harmony and Glozier wore matching expressions of shock, for a moment. Then, to Aziraphale’s horror, they burst out laughing.  
“Oh, well done, dear.” Glozier wiped a tear from his eye. “I think, Mr. Fell, that it is you who has been played for a sucker.” And Rose, face set into a firm, unyielding glare, turned her gun towards Aziraphale instead. “You’ve already met my daughter, Renée.”  
“Oh.” Aziraphale’s heart was pounding; it was all he could hear. “You- right. I- can’t we talk about this? Surely you want more information. Bank details, or something.” He had no illusions about the severity of the situation; the only possible way forward was to play the fool, give them no information, stall for time, and hope he at least died with dignity.  
“We can get those easily enough. No, I don’t think there’s anything left to say, Mr Fell, except goodbye.”

“Oh, you’re not - _ahem_ \- giving him the hook already.” Aziraphale froze; he knew that voice. “Am I - _ahem, ahem, blimey, heurgh_ \- too late to audition?”  
“Who are you?” Harmony demanded.  
“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley lowered his sunglasses to tip him a wink. The effect was somewhat ruined by a bout of coughing.  
“It’s - _hem_ \- dusty in here,” Crowley grumbled, when he was done, “you should - _hem_ \- think about firing your cleaner.”  
“Oh, I know you,” Renée announced suddenly, “the funny guy from the videos, on the internet. Anthony J Crowley.”  
“Anthony?” Aziraphale repeated stupidly - fifteen years, and he’d never known Crowley’s first name - and Crowley straightened up from another coughing fit.  
“You don’t like it?”  
“I didn’t say that. I’ll get used to it. What does the J stand for?”  
“Just a - _hegh_ \- just a J, really.” Of course; Aziraphale had quite forgotten himself. They couldn’t go revealing too much information about themselves in front of these people. 

These people who had, apparently, recovered from their surprise.  
“Kill them both. They’re very irritating.”  
“Oh - _ahem -_ you could, but - _hegh_ \- that would waste valuable running-away time.”  
“What do you mean?” Glozier was quicker to respond than his colleagues, and Crowley favoured him with one of those smiles that always seemed to pull the corners of Aziraphale’s mouth up too.  
“Well, you know, unless - _heurgh, heh_ \- unless you want to be in here when the building gets demolished.”  
“Nice try. This sector isn’t scheduled for demolition until next week.” But Harmony’s smug smile didn’t seem to bother Crowley in the slightest, even though his cough was getting worse. He was almost bent double, wheezing softly, but his grin was almost crazed.  
“Well, no, it wasn’t. _Ahem._ But schedules change.”  
“You’re bluffing,” Harmony told him, but then they all heard it; an engine. Then more engines. Bulldozers.

Crowley met Aziraphale’s eyes and nodded slowly.  
“It would take - _hegh_ \- frankly _phenomenal_ coordination for my friend and I to get out of here unscathed.” And it would - but Aziraphale had done his research, when planning his double-cross, and he knew about the disused sewer tunnel that ran beneath the warehouse, accessible by a grate in the small office across the room. He nodded back. “Good luck, chaps - and chapess, of course,” Crowley offered, “this couldn’t - _hegh_ \- have happened to more deserving people.”

Aziraphale reached out and grabbed Crowley’s arm, dragging him with him as he spluttered and coughed. He lifted the grate with ease, dropped Crowley unceremoniously through it, and scrambled after him before they both began running, full-tilt, along the tunnel. As they emerged through a manhole at the other end, a great cloud of dust followed them out, setting Crowley spluttering once more.  
“Oh, dear.” Aziraphale glanced over his shoulder towards the place where the warehouse had been, but now there was nothing but billowing dust. “Do you think they got out?”  
“Just be glad we did,” Crowley told him, voice rasping on every word as he dropped down to all fours. “What were you playing at?”  
“They were taking over people’s identities, Crowley, and the money was being used to fund organised-”  
“And your people sanctioned that suicide mission, did they?” Aziraphale was a little too slow to reply, and Crowley scoffed. “Oh, right, this was _extra-curricular.”_  
“For a moment, then,” Aziraphale admitted, “I thought you were working with them. Your side, I mean.”  
“Nah, they were pathetic chancers stealing people’s identities by pretending to be a charity. Give me some credit.”

They stayed there for a moment, watching the dust settle and trying to catch their breath, and then Aziraphale groaned.  
“Oh, my papers. I don’t look forward to explaining why I need new ones. Head office will not be pleased, there’s going to be paperwork-” He cut himself off as Crowley pushed himself up off the ground, revealing Aziraphale’s battered old magic case. Crowley picked it up, dusted it off, and handed it back to him. “Oh. Oh, Crowley, how did you-?”  
“Little magic trick of my own,” Crowley told him, and walked away. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift home.”

Aziraphale stood there like a fool, clutching his case to his chest, gazing helplessly at Crowley until the other spy - his opponent, his adversary - turned back to see why he wasn’t following.  
“Sorry, angel, were you planning to stay here all night?”  
“No. No, I’m coming. Thank you.”

He followed his adversary to his car, and tried very hard not to think about the fact that he had just realised he was completely in love with him.

* * *

**Present Day**

Crowley had let Aziraphale go; that was the mistake he’d made in all this. He’d warned him of the danger, and he’d told him what he knew, and then he’d let him go. He’d stood in the phone box and watched as he walked away. He shouldn’t have done. He should have followed him.

Still, perhaps it wasn’t too late. Perhaps there was still time to fix things, to tie up the loose ends he’d created. To give their story the ending it deserved.

He slipped a forged takeaway menu through Aziraphale’s letterbox, with a time and a location carefully coded into it. Then, when the time came, he took a seat at the most prominent table in the restaurant and told the waiter he was expecting someone.

He knew how pathetic and needy he looked, eyes fixed on the front door, fingers drumming anxiously on the table, but he didn’t care. The time for caring about things like that was long past. Eyes fixed on the door, he was startled by Aziraphale’s hand on his shoulder as the other man took his seat opposite him.  
“We shouldn’t be meeting,” Aziraphale told him, “let alone in the open like this.”  
“Busy restaurant,” Crowley pointed out, “might have been made to share a table. We can deny everything.”  
“You know that’s not-”  
“We should leave.” He blurted it out all at once, and there it was, his heart laid bare. Cards on the table.

Aziraphale frowned.  
“I think that might attract _more_ attention, at this point. We’ll stay for lunch, and then-”  
“Not the restaurant. The country. Countries. Whatever. We could just… go off together.” Aziraphale didn’t answer right away, and Crowley found himself babbling, trying to fill the silence, forgetting everything he’d ever been taught about resisting interrogation. “I mean, not if you don’t want to. But… it’s dangerous. What we’re doing. And I don’t want to have to stop.”  
“What _are_ we doing, Crowley?”  
“Well, you know. We’re not supposed to be friends-”  
“We’re not _friends.”_

Crowley felt the words like a slap.  
“Ah. No, but-”  
“I don’t- I don’t even _like_ you.” Aziraphale was drawing in on himself, now, somehow becoming smaller and spikier until Crowley could almost believe he was arguing with a hedgehog. “This- this _arrangement_ was mutually beneficial, and now it’s mutually dangerous, and it needs to stop.”  
“You…” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “You _do.”_ He wasn’t so bad a judge of character as all that, surely? It was part of what made him so good at his job, when he could be bothered, his ability to read people, to understand situations.  
“We’re on different sides, Crowley. We always were. And it’s time we remembered that.”

For a moment, as he stood, he looked almost sad - but then it was as if a shutter came down, his face turning carefully blank, and then he was gone.

Aziraphale had left him, and Crowley had never understood him at all.

“Are you ready to order, sir?”

Crowley bit back a snarl and stormed out, leaving a noteworthy tip on the table.


	16. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of you were hoping for some sunshine this chapter... I hope you'll enjoy this one regardless!

**10 years ago**

“So we’re robbing a mining operation?”  
“Yes,” Crowley told them, for what felt like the fifteenth time. “They’re using hazardous extraction methods anyway, and it’s not like they can’t afford the hit.”  
“So what are we stealing? Coal?”  
“Well, it’s a gold mine, so no,” Crowley admitted, “but we’re not after the gold.”  
“Why not? We could do it, easy.” Their locksman, Shadwell, grinned. The effect was unpleasant. “Army pension stopped paying out once the army got divided up. Gold’d do me nicely.”  
“Yeah, well, I’m paying you well over the going rate for this little caper. We’ve just got to pick up one little item while we’re in the compound, and then you can retire off the proceeds.”  
“What kind of item?”  
“Nothing you need to worry about just yet. I’ll tell you when you need to know.”

The date of the theft was set - three days from now - and Crowley tried not to think too hard about the dangers involved. It would be worth it, if he got what he wanted. What he needed. He needed to be safe, and to do that, he needed… well. If Aziraphale wouldn’t give him insurance, he would have to take it for himself.

He was still feeling uneasy when he got to his car - a classic Bentley, the sort of car that drew so much attention that nobody could remember what you looked like without it - and that feeling of unease only grew as he realised that it wasn’t sitting right. The passenger side was riding low, the weight of the car unevenly distributed. Somebody was in his car. He circled round to the driver’s side, as casually as possible, then opened the door and threw himself into the backseat in one swift movement, jabbing two fingers through the cushioned material in the hope that the intruder would mistake it for a gun.  
“What do you want?”  
“Crowley! Really, there’s no need for such theatrics. I’m here alone.”  
“Angel.” He lowered his hand as Aziraphale turned to look at him. “I didn’t know you were in here.”  
“I thought it safer than waiting outside. These old cars aren’t very secure, are they?”  
“She’s not old,” Crowley grumbled, “she’s a classic.”  
“Oh, I do apologise. Well, are you going to get in the front so we can talk?”  
“Could talk back here.” But he sighed as he said it, already swinging his legs back out of the car to settle back in the driver’s seat. “What are we talking about?”  
“I work nearby, you know. I hear things. Word is you’re planning a- a caper.”  
“No law against it.”  
“Actually, I think you’ll find-”  
“Crime’s on the rise around these parts. Lots of people planning lots of capers. What’s it to you?”  
“A gold mine, Crowley. _Really.”_  
“I can’t like shiny things?”  
“You’re not after- I know what you want from that mine, Crowley. They extract the gold using cyanidation, and you’re not after riches.”  
“Fine. Well, if you’re so clever, I suppose you’ve got some plan to stop me.”  
“Only- only one. As it happens.”

Aziraphale was silent for a little too long, as Crowley stared stubbornly out through the front windshield, and when he turned he discovered that his opposite number was holding out a thermos flask. Tartan-patterned. Unremarkable, really, indistinguishable from any number of other mass-produced flasks - but quite unlike anything Crowley had ever owned.  
“Is that-”  
“The deadliest,” Aziraphale confirmed.  
“But you said-”  
“I know what I said, and I meant it. I haven’t changed my mind.” But he didn’t withdraw the flask, didn’t make any move to stop Crowley from taking it. “But robbing the mine - that’s too dangerous. I couldn’t have you getting yourself killed.” He flinched as the weight of the flask was transferred into Crowley’s hands. “Don’t go unscrewing the cap.”  
“Should I say thank you?” It didn’t seem like enough; Aziraphale was trusting him with his own safety, as well as Crowley’s. If the wrong person found out about this - if anyone found out - they would both be in extremely hot water.  
“Better not.” Aziraphale looked as though he wanted to say something else, but then he pressed his lips together in that prim little way he had that made Crowley want to scream, and when he spoke again it seemed he’d changed tack. “It’s liquid, obviously. I couldn’t get a pill without- without questions being asked. But this-”  
“This is fine, this is- this is probably better, actually. More practical applications.” He took a deep breath and prepared to roll the dice. _Better not thank him._ “Let me give you a lift. Drop you somewhere.”  
“No, no, I think I’d better-”  
“No, really. Anywhere you want to go.”  
“Oh, my dear...” His expression was tender, almost pitying, and Crowley almost winced; how much of the desperate longing he’d been denying for so long was written in his face? “You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

And before Crowley could respond, before he could begin to make sense of that, Aziraphale got out of the car. He stopped, a few shops down the road, beneath a bright neon sign advertising something unsavoury, and for a moment all Crowley could do was look at him in the rear-view mirror. The late-night crowds bustled around him, and Crowley wanted to scream at them - _look at him, look how perfect he is, look at how unfair all of this is_ \- because none of them gave Aziraphale a second glance. How could he just stand there without people stopping and staring, strangers falling to their knees in worship the way Crowley wished he could?

_You go too fast for me._

Crowley put the car into gear and drove away.

* * *

**Present Day**

“Crowley.”

Crowley froze in the middle of the street, the voice growling through his mobile phone’s tinny speakers instantly recognisable. This was not a scheduled check-in; something had to be wrong.  
“Hastur! How’s it going?”  
“That depends on your perspective.” Hastur’s voice dripped with barely-restrained glee. “There’s going to be a war, Crowley. We’re finally going to finish what we started. Wipe Lestern off the map.”  
“Oh. Oh, good. I’m glad to hear it.”  
“Are you? Thought you might have a problem with that.”  
“Me? No, why would I have a problem with-? Another war, why not? Been a while, hasn’t it, probably due-”  
“Well, I’m glad you’re taking this so well. We’ll be wiping out you and your Lesterni agent, too, you know.”  
“Me and my-?”  
“Don’t bother denying it. Stay where you are, we’re coming to pick you up.”  
“I- you’re br- talk-”  
“You’re dead, Crowley. You and your little friend Azir-”

Crowley ended the call and broke into a run, scattering people left and right as he made for his car.

He had to get to Aziraphale.


	17. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to this chapter; I hope you like it!
> 
> Apologies to anyone who's left a comment and not had a reply yet - I've got a little behind, but I've read all the comments and they mean the world to me. I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

**8 years ago**

The unremarkable man took a slow, leisurely walk along the river until he came within sight of the border checkpoint, then turned and meandered across the fields. It was a regularly-used circuit of sorts, popular with dog-walkers; along the river, across the fields, turn again at the gates of the long-abandoned park, and then a short walk back into town. The guards at the checkpoint didn’t even glance at him as he followed a man with an excitable terrier through the fields, walking almost right along the invisible line between Fernor and Lestern. Then, slowing as if to catch his breath, he glanced around himself and clambered over the park gates.

The old bandstand had stood neglected and unloved for twenty years, located right on the border between the two countries. It had been the heart of a happy neighbourhood once, no doubt; brass bands had played here, small children had used it as a clubhouse and families had taken shelter in it from the rain. Now it was overgrown, and as the unremarkable man approached, it seemed empty. He stepped inside and jumped as a long, lithe form uncurled from the shadows.  
“You’re late.”  
“I had to try to look casual,” Aziraphale hurried to excuse himself, “and there was a dog-walker I had to drop out of sight o-”  
“Doesn’t matter. Look, I need your help. I need to get some people across the border.”  
“People?” Aziraphale frowned. “That’s rather more complicated than our usual trades. What sort of people?”  
“Children,” Crowley told him, and as he stepped further into the light, his sunglasses perched low on his nose, Aziraphale could see the pleading look in his eyes.  
“Why on earth would your side want Fernori children smuggled into Lestern?”  
“Child. They want a _child_ smuggled in, for medical treatment. You’ve got the best doctors.”  
“And your employers care because…?”  
“Because he’s the child of a brilliant scientist, who they think will defect if we don’t help the kid. He’s only five years old.”  
“But you said _children.”_  
“I’ve convinced my side to falsify papers for the whole ward,” Crowley admitted, “only three! There are only three boys. But I told them we’d need decoys, and they fell for it.”  
“Why three, Crowley?”  
“Because they’ll die if I don’t. If _we_ don’t. Aziraphale… we have to help them.”

Aziraphale had never felt as unremarkable as he did in that moment, entirely eclipsed by Crowley’s kindness. His mind worked frantically, contemplating ingress points, transport options, the likelihood of finding safe placements for the children being smuggled across.  
“…Fine. Your people will handle the documents?”  
“False identities. But the other two - I’ve seen the files. One of them is an orphan. The other’s parents are political prisoners. They don’t have much of a future in Fernor; it might be better if we could lose track of them, at least temporarily, once they’ve been treated.”  
“Political prisoners? I can work with that. My people might help that one disappear. The orphan might be a tougher sell.”  
“I know. I don’t expect you to do it. Anything you can manage will be… it would mean a lot, angel.”  
“Very well. Give me all the details you can.”

Two weeks later, the unremarkable man approached the same bandstand in the dead of night, three small, warm coats bundled in his arms. Four pairs of eyes caught the light from within the shadowy recesses of the abandoned structure.  
“Fiend?”  
“Angel.” Crowley ushered his charges forward. “These are the kids.”  
“Which is which?”  
“This is Warlock. His father’s the person of interest to Fernor. Gert, whose parents can’t be with him. And Adam.”

Aziraphale scrutinised each tiny, frightened face, determined not to make any mistakes. Warlock, the scientist’s child, dark hair falling in his eyes. Gert, a sturdy-looking boy with hollow cheeks, the son of political prisoners. And Adam, small and blond and orphaned. Each of them stared back at him, Warlock clinging to Crowley’s trouser leg. He realised, with a pang, that even an unremarkable man could be frightening.  
“Hello, young gentlemen. I’m Aziraphale. I’ve brought you some warm coats, since it’s a cold night.” He handed them to Crowley for inspection. “I’m going to take you to see some very special doctors. Is that OK?”  
“Yeah,” Adam answered, holding his head high, and Aziraphale smiled.  
“Good. Will your friends come?”

Gert nodded. Warlock let out a little whimper and clung tighter to Crowley. Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure what to do about it, but fortunately, Crowley seemed more confident.  
“Warlock, lamb, you’re going to be just fine. Don’t tell anybody, but Aziraphale is my very best friend in the whole world. He’s going to look after you, and his very clever doctors are going to make you all better.”  
“Will you come and visit me?” Warlock whispered, and Crowley winced.  
“I’ll do my best. I’ll do my very, very best. And Aziraphale will visit, too, won’t you?”  
“Yes, of course, if you’d like me to.” It wasn’t as if he was going to let Warlock out of his sight, after all. “Now, will you all get your coats on for me?”

The boys scrambled into action, bickering lightly over which coat was best and who got what before helping each other to struggle into them. Aziraphale took advantage of their distraction to have a murmured discussion with Crowley.  
“How do your side think you got them across?”  
“Sweet-talking my way across the border, disguised as the children’s nanny.” He gestured down at himself, and Aziraphale noticed for the first time that the other agent was sporting a distinctly feminine style. “A female nanny, at bloody Hastur’s insistence. He said a male nanny would arouse suspicion, but I think he just wanted to see me humiliated. Well, joke’s on him, I look fantastic.”  
“You do,” Aziraphale acknowledged, and then realised he shouldn’t have said it. He hurried on. “Anything else I should know?” Crowley stepped even closer, then, speaking so softly that his voice was barely audible, even as his lips brushed Aziraphale’s ear.  
“The political prisoners. Gert’s parents. They were executed this morning. He doesn’t know.”  
“Good lord.”  
“Please don’t tell your people. He needs to disappear, and if they can do that-”  
“Of course. Leave it to me.” He was horribly aware, all of a sudden, of the faith Crowley was placing in him. “Crowl-”  
“Ewwwww!” They broke apart to see Gert pointing at them, all three boys giggling. “Were you _kissing?”_  
_“_ No!” Crowley scoffed, bending down to make sure all their coats were zipped right to the top. “No, we were just talking.”  
“Good,” Gert told them, “kissing’s _gross.”_  
“Yes, it is,” Crowley agreed cheerfully, and Aziraphale felt a twinge of pain somewhere in the region of his heart. Crowley had kissed him, once; had it been so bad? Had Crowley changed his mind so completely in the years since that night? If he had, Aziraphale could hardly blame him. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then. “Now, go with Aziraphale, quickly now, and remember to be good for your Nanny Ash.”  
“Nanny Ash?”  
“Me,” Crowley told him, as if daring him to mock him for it. “Make me proud, kids.”  
“We will, Nanny Ash,” came the stilted, uneven chorus.  
“And me?” Aziraphale teased, but Crowley met his eyes without flinching. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, Aziraphale realised; of course he wasn’t, it was the middle of the night.  
“You make me proud, too.”

The unremarkable man led his three charges through the park, through the woods, across the fields, and into an idling taxi just on the edge of town.  
“I’ve been waiting ten minutes for you lot.”  
“I do apologise,” said the unremarkable man, “we were just on our way out of the house when everybody decided they needed the toilet.”  
“Oh, yeah,” the cabbie laughed, “that takes me back. When my eldest was little, and Maud - that’s my wife - was eight months pregnant, she always used to say Maggie had to go more often than she did.”  
“You know how kids are,” Aziraphale told him thinly, and the cabbie laughed again.  
“That’s all right, then. Now, hospital, was it? Have you there in no time.”

* * *

**Present Day**

The unremarkable man was just leaving his flat when a classic car pulled up with a screech of brakes.  
“Aziraphale. My side are coming for us, I’m sorry for everything, this is me apologising. OK? Good. Get in the car.”  
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” He took a step backwards, away from the car, and Crowley’s words hit home. “Your side-?”  
“They know about us, I don’t know how they know but they do. They’re coming-”  
“We can’t just run away, Crowley.”  
“Why not? There’s going to be another war, angel, I’m not- I don’t want to go through that again.”  
“I- you’re afraid.” It was obvious, when he thought about it; Crowley had lost his nerve. “That’s- but we’ll get it all sorted out. I’ll have a word with someone at the top who can help, and they’ll sort it out.”  
“There _is_ no-one at the top who can help. There’s just our bosses, spoiling for a fight and not trusting any of us!”

Aziraphale tried, once more, to reason with him.  
“I can’t just abandon my post. You must go, if you feel-”  
“Fine! Fine, I’m leaving. I’m leaving, I’m going to- to steal a plane, or something, and when I’m up there in the clouds I won’t even _think_ about you.”

He drove away; the unremarkable man watched him go. How strange, to have been in Crowley’s presence and felt no more seen than he had out of it; he hadn’t let Crowley’s words reach him. He hadn’t let him in.  
_I’m leaving, I won’t even think about you._  
He couldn’t be leaving yet, he couldn’t really mean to disappear and leave the unremarkable man to face a war alone. There would be time. He would have time to reach Crowley, to give him the good news he hoped would be able to offer him.  
_My side are coming for us,_ Crowley had said. Well, the unremarkable man had a side too.

He entered the bookshop without fanfare and knocked on the hidden bookcase door. Behind that door lay the office of the true head of Lesterni intelligence, the one Gabriel and Uriel and even Michael answered to. He waited, then knocked again. And again. At length, a harried-looking secretary opened the door.  
“She’s not in.” She was never in; even the executives hadn’t spoken to her in person since the war. There were rumours she’d been killed in the early fighting, but her office remained and so, apparently, did her secretary.  
“I need to speak to her.”  
“Nobody speaks to her.” The secretary looked him up and down, taking in the urgency of his expression. “You can talk to me, if you want.”  
“I wondered, ah…” he lowered his voice. “What’s our policy on enemy agents defecting?”  
“Unfavourable,” the secretary told him sternly, “especially with a war coming up.”  
“Oh. Yes, about that, ah- is it truly necessary? This second war? We’ve only just got this country back on its feet after the last one-”  
“The War is part of the long-term intelligence plan we’ve had since the moment the border was formed.” The secretary gave him a pitying look. “Don’t you want our nation to be whole again?”  
“Oh. Oh, well, yes. Of course. I see.”  
“What was your name again? Perhaps it’s time you were brought up to speed with the bigger picture. We could use you on the front lines.”  
“Oh.” The unremarkable man took a step back, suddenly uncertain. “I’d love to, certainly - I just need to move my car, if I’m going to be heading straight off. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He hurried to the door, afraid to look back, and stepped out into the street, fumbling in his pocket for his lockpicks. He was going to have to steal a car, and- and find Crowley. Whatever he did now, he needed Crowley’s help.

He turned a corner and ran right into Uriel.


	18. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: character death.
> 
> Enjoy!

**7 years ago**

It had been a year since Warlock had arrived in Lestern, nine months since his operation, and six months since Crowley had crossed the border to check on him for the first time. He’d managed to get himself stationed in Ghadon, the very city where he’d attended university, and he was having a miserable time of it, if he was honest - but it allowed him to get to St Beryl’s Hospital easily and discreetly by bus, and from there it was just a short walk to where Warlock was now living with foster parents.

He arrived for a visit, only for the housekeeper to greet him with, “Not another one.” The Dowlings and their staff had never been the warmest of people, but they were ex-military, and Aziraphale seemed to have decided that they were the safest options to look after Warlock until he could be returned home.  
“What do you mean, not another one?”  
“I mean, you’re the second visitor for Warlock today. The other one hasn’t even left yet.”

Crowley paid her no more attention; he slipped a hand into his jacket pocket for the knife he kept there and stole down the corridor the housekeeper had indicated. Nobody else should be visiting Warlock; something was wrong. Was Lestern making a move to secure a hostage? He’d been a fool, he should have seen the double-cross coming-  
Aziraphale looked up from where he and Warlock were working on a jigsaw, and his face broke into a wide grin.  
“Ash! What a lovely surprise!”  
“It’s not a surprise,” Warlock grumbled, “I _told_ you he’d be here today. He _promised_ he would be.”  
“I did, and here I am.” Crowley ruffled Warlock’s hair; he didn’t know quite what to do about Aziraphale. “Did you need something, er…?”  
“Francis.” Aziraphale held out his hand and Crowley shook it formally, feeling rather as though he had stepped into some sort of bizarre dream world. “No, no. I just thought it might be nice to meet here. I’m the only one watching this house, so it’s safe.”  
“It’s never _safe,”_ Crowley murmured, then pounced on an edge piece just behind Warlock’s elbow. “Here! Where does this go, then?”

Later, Crowley saw Aziraphale out into the hallway.  
“I’ll stay a bit longer,” he admitted, “he likes when I sing him to sleep.”  
“You’re a really nice person, underneath it all, aren’t you?”  
“You take that back.” Crowley was doing his best to be menacing, but his heart wasn’t in it. “Everything’s really all right?”  
“Everything’s fine. Not a hint of trouble from either side.”  
“And his health? The other boys?”  
“They were all fine when they were discharged. The others were given new identities at the hospital and I don’t know them, so I can’t check up on them, but Warlock’s doctors say he’s doing very well.”  
“Good. That’s… that’s good.” He hesitated. “Be careful out there.”  
“Why, do you know something I don’t?” The tone was teasing, but it was a valid question.  
“No, nothing. I just… take care of yourself.”  
“You, too.”

Aziraphale left, and Crowley went back to help Warlock with his jigsaw.

* * *

**Present Day**

Crowley didn’t have much time, and he knew it. That detour to try to sway Aziraphale to his way of thinking had cost him precious minutes, and now Hastur must be closing in. He rushed to the safe hidden behind the manhole cover on his wall, opening it to reveal an innocuous-looking tartan-patterned flask.  
 _Time for one last drink._

Hastur threw the door open just as Crowley was rehanging the manhole cover, his full glass sitting next to a bottle of Amaretto, out of reach on his desk. Ligur was with him; well, that was just overkill, in Crowley’s opinion. Two against one. Not very sporting. The deadlock on Crowley’s front door clunked into place with a horrible finality. He forced a smile.  
“Fellas. You wouldn’t begrudge a man one last drink before you take him in, would you?”  
“As a matter of fact,” Ligur growled, “I would.” He scooped up the glass and drained it in two swift gulps, grimacing. “Almonds. I hate it.”  
“It wasn’t _for_ you,” Crowley grumbled, “but fine, whatever. I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could discuss this like gentlemen?”  
“Get real, Crowley.” Hastur was advancing on him now, a malicious glint in his eye. “We’re taking you in now, preferably in pieces.”  
“Pieces can’t tell you much, though, can they? If you think I’ve been playing for the other side, surely you’ve got questions for me. Surely Dagon and Beelzebub have questions, anyway.”  
“Orders were to take you in. They didn’t say _alive.”_ But Hastur did look doubtful, just for a moment. It was a pity he’d managed to get firmly between Crowley and the nearest firearm hidden in the study. “What do you reckon, Ligur?”  
“Kill-” Ligur choked, then took a deep, gurgling breath. “Kill him.”  
“Yeah, we’ll get answers from your corpse,” Hastur sneered. He took a step forward- and Ligur collapsed.

Hastur turned, then dropped to his knees beside his colleague.  
“Ligur. Stop messing about.” He shook him, pressed two fingers to his neck for a moment, then rounded on Crowley in a fury- only to find himself face-to-face with the business end of a cheap plant mister.  
“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”  
“What have you done to him? He’s dead!”   
Crowley sighed. “I didn’t tell him to drink it. You might be better off worrying about what’s in this plant mister.”

Hastur raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, appealing for rationality.  
“You’re bluffing.”  
“Am I, Hastur?” Crowley’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Do you feel lucky?”  
For a moment, there was utter stillness in the flat, the two agents staring one another down. Crowley felt the droplet hit his finger in the same instant that Hastur noticed it; the lack of effect on Crowley’s skin couldn’t be more obvious.  
“Yeah, I do,” Hastur snarled, and lunged-

Crowley darted backwards, through the door to his safe room, and slammed it behind him, another heavy-duty lock settling into place with a deafening _clunk._  
“So long, sucker,” he muttered, and slipped through his emergency escape hatch.

Out on the street, he hesitated for only a moment before making his way to his car, looking it over for any signs of tampering and sliding into the driver’s seat. He needed to check on Aziraphale.


	19. Chapter 18

**6 years ago**

The unremarkable man would be very glad when the time for sneaking people across the border was over; Crowley was due to meet him at the same bandstand they’d smuggled the children into Lestern through, and Warlock - now the picture of health after a very successful operation - was set to go home with an associate of his father’s. The unremarkable man suspected that his superiors would have preferred the boy be kept in Lestern and used to ensure his father’s defection, but he had chosen not to mention Warlock’s true identity to them. He’d got the boys their false identity papers through less-than-legal means, and he’d let the other two get thoroughly lost through the hospital’s private fostering arrangements. He had no intention of allowing a living, breathing human child to be used as a bargaining chip.

Crowley arrived in broad daylight, along with a rather solemn-looking chap in a shirt and tie.  
“This is the asset’s driver,” Crowley told him, “it’s not safe for him to come in person.”  
“Can we trust him?”  
“He doesn’t know who you are, and he doesn’t need to.” Crowley shrugged, then raised his voice a little so the driver could hear. “This is Mr Dogg, who works for the boy’s father.”  
“A pleasure.” Aziraphale didn’t offer a name. He should probably have given an alias of some sort, but he found himself distracted as he noticed that Crowley was wearing lipstick, or perhaps some sort of gloss. Whatever it was, it made his lips look particularly attractive; Aziraphale wondered, for perhaps the first time in his life, what lipstick tasted like.  
“Mr Dogg, this is my friend Francis. It’s a bit of a drive to pick your employer’s son up, but I left my car in town. It shouldn’t take too long to get there, and then I’ll get you to him in no time at all.”  
“Thank you. I’m- my employer’s keen to see him, so I don’t want to keep him waiting too long.”

They strolled back along the dog-walking route together, just three men taking in some country air, until they came across Crowley’s car. To be more precise, Crowley’s hired car, because his Bentley tended to attract attention and that was one thing they didn’t need. Just to be on the safe side, Aziraphale sat in the back seat with a blanket ready, in case he needed to hide under it.  
“I wonder if he’ll recognise me,” Dogg wondered anxiously, “it’s been years.”  
“Only two,” Crowley reassured him. “Did he see you often when he was growing up?”  
“Oh, all the time.” Dogg chuckled nervously. “I’ve been with the family longer than he has.”  
“Then I’m sure he’ll remember you.”

They hadn’t warned Warlock he was going home, just in case anything went wrong on the way, so as they pulled into the driveway he was playing contentedly on a swing, in the garden to the side of the house.  
“Oh, that’s nice,” Dogg said, “I didn’t realise there were other children here for Adam to play with.”  
“Adam?” Crowley braked too hard.  
“Other?” Aziraphale poked Crowley urgently in the shoulder. “A word?”

“He said _Adam,”_ Crowley murmured, once they were alone.  
“He should have recognised him,” Aziraphale agreed. “You’re sure you brought the right man? He’s not an impostor?”  
“No, he’s the right man.” Crowley sighed. “I picked him up from the professor’s home, the professor’s wife vouched for him.”  
“Well, if he’s the right man, then…” Aziraphale followed Crowley’s gaze to the boy on the swing, who thankfully didn’t seem to have noticed them yet.  
“Wrong boy.” Crowley huffed.

They got back into the car.  
“We’ve got a confession to make,” Crowley began, and Aziraphale glared at him.  
 _“You’ve_ got a confession to make. I did as you said-”  
“Fine. _I’ve_ got a confession to make. There might have been a very tiny mix-up.”  
“You’ve lost the boy,” Dogg guessed, sounding very, very worried, and Aziraphale held up his hands.  
“I didn’t-”  
“The _boy has been lost,”_ Crowley supplied irritably, “and I apologise, I really do. But- if your employer will give us just a little time- we can find him. I know we can find him.”  
“They all had very good results from the surgery,” Aziraphale assured him, “he’s alive and well and we can track him down-”  
“Fine. Do that. I’ll… I’ll tell Professor Young something, there’s some sort of hold up with our travel or something, and I’ll stay right here. I don’t want the family to worry.”  
“You’re… not going to tell his parents he’s missing?”  
“No.” Dogg grimaced. “I don’t want to be fired. But I’m staying until you find him, and it had better be quick.”  
“This will be our number one priority,” Crowley promised, “we won’t rest until Adam is safe and sound and back with you.”  
“Please hurry.” Mr Dogg took one last look at Warlock, as if to be sure he wasn’t the right boy after all. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I need somewhere safe to stay.”

* * *

**Present Day**

The unremarkable man dragged himself back into consciousness by the scruff of his neck and sat still, slumped over in the same uncomfortable position he’d woken to find himself in. He had been captured and cuffed to a chair; it had all happened so fast. He played it back in his head, searching for any useful information.

_Uriel had punched him in the stomach before he could even apologise for his clumsiness. He’d doubled over, and they’d leant in to speak into his ear._   
_“Your boyfriend in the dark glasses can’t help you now.” They’d taken one arm, and a short, unpleasant man had seized the other. Sandalphon. The unremarkable man had seen him once or twice - he’d been part of the small deputation that had presented him with a completely pointless Long Service medal, all those years ago - but never had much cause to speak with him. He’d been happy with that state of affairs, to be honest; Sandalphon was an expert in the enhanced interrogation techniques the unremarkable man abhorred._   
_“You’re mine,” Sandalphon had told him, with no small amount of glee, “for the rest of your short, miserable life, you’re mine.”_   
_Then, thankfully, someone had knocked him out._

When he opened his eyes a fraction, he could see brightly-polished brown shoes and the bottom of purple-grey trousers. _Gabriel._ The unremarkable man would have made different sartorial choices, personally, but then perhaps he was old-fashioned.  
“Rise and shine, Aziraphale.” There was no point in pretending any longer; the unremarkable man lifted his head to look his superior in the eye.  
“Gabriel! How odd, I thought I was Sandalphon’s. He _will_ be put out.”  
“Oh, a sense of humour. That’s unexpected. Well, make the most of it now, because there won’t be any more laughter.”  
“No, I gathered as much. Might I ask what I’m accused of?”  
“Sleeping with the enemy.” Gabriel snorted mirthlessly. “Not literally, perhaps, but you’ve certainly been passing information to the Fernori. Now, your flat has been torched and your body will never be found - and the really depressing thing is that nobody’s even going to miss you.” He turned on his heel and went to leave, but the unremarkable man called out.  
“You’ve got a leak, you know.” He sighed. “And I don’t mean me.”  
“Of course you don’t.” Gabriel opened the door and called for Sandalphon before turning back to the unremarkable man, a cold smile on his face. “Never mind. I’ve already forgotten you exist.”

The cuffs clicked open behind him, and Aziraphale sprang to his feet, tucking his spare set of lockpicks back up his sleeve. _Thank you, Crowley._  
“You can’t do that!”  
“As it turns out, I can.” Then he shoved past Gabriel and began running along the corridor he found himself in, rapidly trying to get his bearings on his way. He was lucky; they’d labelled every corridor with the building name and sector. Luckier still; he’d been here before.

Aziraphale took a deep, shuddering breath and ran out of a fire exit, disappearing into the night.


	20. Chapter 19

**6 years ago**

St. Beryl’s Hospital hadn’t changed tremendously much since the unremarkable man had last visited, aside from the fact that it no longer seemed to be operating as a hospital. The old ambulance hangar was draped in camouflage netting, there were smart estate cars pulled up outside, and a banner hanging over the entrance proclaimed ‘A VERY WARM WELCOME TO SELECTAN HOLDINGS, INC’.

As Crowley and Aziraphale approached the door, there was a sudden report, a sound both agents knew all too well. _Rat-tat._ Gunfire. The unremarkable man lurched into a crouch, even as he felt something hit him in the shoulder from behind, and he drew a wickedly sharp letter-opener from his breast pocket with a whimper of betrayal. If he survived long enough for anyone to ask, he would absolutely deny that it was a whimper, and - if it _had_ been a whimper, which it wasn’t - that it had anything to do with the realisation that Crowley must have sold him out, finally set him up to be taken out by the other side. It had taken so long for the unremarkable man to drop his guard, but he had - he had trusted Crowley, and now he was going to pay for it.

Except, he realised a second later, Crowley was clutching his chest, hand over his heart, and in his other hand was a pair of pocket-sized pruning shears held like a weapon. A feeble blade, but Aziraphale had no doubt at all that Crowley was capable of wielding it to deadly effect. They both fell back together to crouch behind the nearest car - the only available cover - and then Crowley took his hand away from his heart.  
“Paint.” He peered more closely at it, and Aziraphale realised it didn’t even _look_ like blood. Crowley touched his hand to the stain once more, and yellow liquid oozed between his fingers. “It’s paint. You’re all right?”  
Aziraphale meant to answer, but Crowley was already turning him, running careful fingers over the place where he’d been hit. “My coat isn’t,” he blurted awkwardly, trying to focus on the inconvenience and not the fact that Crowley was touching him.  
“No. No, I’m sorry, I’ve made it all green now, instead of blue. I think it’ll wash out, though. If you scrub at it a bit.”  
“I’ll know it’s there,” Aziraphale countered sadly, and Crowley rolled his eyes.  
“Give it to me later, then, I’ll do the scrubbing.” And then, before Aziraphale could protest, he looked around himself, tucking his shears back into an inner pocket. “Paintballs, though. Who goes paintballing at a hospital?”

As it turned out, it really _wasn’t_ a hospital any more. St Beryl’s had closed down over a year earlier, shortly after the unremarkable man had stopped keeping an eye on it, and it now appeared to be the venue for some sort of corporate retreat.  
“But there must be records,” Aziraphale spluttered, glancing at the brochure Crowley handed him. “We need to speak to a manager.”

They set off down the corridors together, Crowley kicking open doors at random, until they ran into an offshoot of the paint-based battle raging on outside.  
“Whose side are you on?” an angry little woman in head-to-toe camo gear demanded. “Where’s your body armour? Are you from Health & Safety?”  
“Health and Safety?” It was more of a bellow than a question, as another woman rushed around the corner, paint gun at the ready.

Aziraphale barely had time to register her presence, the presence of the gun in her hand, the movement of her finger on the trigger, before he was flying backwards, crushed against the hard stone wall by the warm weight of a body.  
“Not playing, ladies. Saw someone back there, looked like he might wield a clipboard for a living.”  
The two women spoke in unison. _“Geoff.”_ And with warlike cries, they charged off around the corner, leaving Aziraphale pinned to the wall by his rival. His enemy. His-  
“Crowley,” he managed, his voice sounding thin and raspy even to his own ears. “I think we’re safe.” _God, I wish we were._ But the truth was, they’d never been less safe than they were now, standing close together in the empty hallway of a former hospital. They’d never been less safe and yet he wished they didn’t have to move. Crowley’s face was inches from his, and Aziraphale couldn’t take his eyes off the other man’s mouth. “Crowley,” he tried again, and Crowley’s tongue darted out to wet his lower lip. Aziraphale was reminded of another time, another wall. “Crowley-”  
“Sorry to break up an intimate moment,” a feminine voice interrupted smoothly, “but can I help you, gentlemen?”

Crowley lurched backwards, leaving Aziraphale dazed, and it took a couple of moments of incoherent spluttering on Crowley’s part before Aziraphale realised that he knew the woman who was speaking.  
“Nurse Mary?” That was what she’d called herself, what the children had known her as. She’d spent hours chatting to them all; they’d liked her. “Do you remember me? I’m-”  
The former nurse, in her business casual suit, jolted suddenly, and Crowley stepped back with a grimace. “Sorry. Need to know you’re telling the truth.” He slipped the needle in his hand back into his pocket, and Aziraphale glared at him.  
“Well, really, is there any need-?”  
“No, you’re right, we should have just said _hello, we’re a couple of secret agents working for opposing interests and we’re looking for a little boy for no nefarious purposes whatsoever-”_  
“All right, I see your point.” Aziraphale smiled hopefully at former Nursing Sister Mary Hodges. “You’re not a nurse any more, my dear?”  
“I couldn’t stand it any more. Doctors talking down to you, bodily fluids everywhere, no pay worth speaking of… when the hospital closed, I saw an opportunity. Corporate retreats are where the money is now.”  
“Right, yeah, fascinating,” Crowley snapped, “where are the kids? The kids who had the operation, the ones who got new papers-”  
“The children from the Apple Tree Ward,” Aziraphale supplied helpfully.  
“Oh, those children are gone,” Mary told him, her expression a little dreamy, “safe and sound in their new homes.”  
“Yes, but _where?_ There must have been some record,” Crowley pressed.  
“Oh, yes, there were. But the records were all destroyed in the fire,” Mary admitted, “there was such a terrible fire.”  
“This is no use,” Crowley snapped, “we’re done for. We’re never going to find him.”  
“I remember thinking it was funny, though,” Mary went on, her expression blank, “how they both ended up going to Tadfield. It’s not far from here.”  
“Thank you, Mary,” The unremarkable man managed, as Crowley strode away down the corridor without so much as a backwards glance, “I shouldn’t expect you’ll remember this in a few hours, but in the meantime, perhaps you should think about… about whatever it is you like best.”

He caught up with Crowley at his ridiculously conspicuous car.  
“Honestly! I hope that wasn’t anything dangerous you gave her.”  
“No, just a truth serum. One of the few things my side are good at. She won’t remember a thing, and she’ll be fine. Get in the car. We’re going to Tadfield.”  
“It’s not quite that small a place, Crowley. You’re going to have to give me some time. Let me regroup, let me look into it, make some discreet enquiries, and I’ll let you know the moment I locate the child.”  
“Yeah, well… make it quick, yeah? You’re not the one who has to explain the delay to that Dogg fellow.” Crowley sighed. “Get in, angel. I’ll drop you home.”

And Aziraphale, with a thousand questions on his lips, a thousand feelings in his heart, did what he did best; he squashed them all down inside himself and concealed himself on the back seat in silence.

* * *

**Present Day**

Aziraphale’s flat was on fire.

It was _on fire._ The bookshop beneath it had gone up like so much dry kindling, its owner sobbing into the arms of a police officer at the edge of the scene, and Aziraphale had been nowhere to be seen. Crowley had stared at it for several minutes, eyes stinging from the smoke and the sudden, crushing realisation that he was alone. That Aziraphale was gone, really gone, and he would never see him again.

He would never again see Aziraphale’s face light up when he saw him. He would never again see the fussy little way he dabbed crumbs from his lips with a napkin, would never again envy that napkin the knowledge of Aziraphale’s lips. He would never again look at him and think _oh, oh no, I’m in trouble,_ or _oh, oh no, I’m in love._

He would never again be in love. He was so in love with Aziraphale and now all of that had nowhere to go, nowhere at all. He would drown in it.

Hastur would get out of Crowley’s flat sooner or later, or somebody would notice he was missing, and then all the fury of the Fernori intelligence service would come crashing down on him. Crowley didn’t have the energy to fight that any more. He wouldn’t give them any trouble, when they came for him. He was already drowning.

He turned and made his way to the nearest pub, took up a corner booth and snarled at anyone who tried to come near him. He was half way through a bottle of what tasted like it might be toilet cleaner when a nervous-looking man who seemed like he might have rolled off the production line at some kind of Tech Support Operative factory approached. A couple of other drinkers tried to dissuade him from this foolish course of action, and Crowley felt a brief flicker of gratitude towards his fellow human beings, but Tech Support kept coming, clearly terrified but relentless in his quest to make Crowley’s day worse. Well, the joke was on him. Today couldn’t get worse.

“Er, Crowley? Is it?”  
“Who’s asking?” But it didn’t matter, really. He nodded and took another swig from his bottle, his glass having found its way to the other side of the table, too far to bother reaching for.  
“Er, my name is… I’m- I’m- we have a mutual friend. He wanted me to look for you, he said… he said he hoped you’d be somewhere near his flat.”  
“Who’s that, then?”  
“His flat… he asked me to tell you he knows it’s on fire.”

For a moment, that didn’t make sense, and then - abruptly - it did.

“’Ziraphale’s alive?”  
“Yes!” Tech Support lit up in relief. “Yes, he is. It is you, then? Only- only he wanted me to tell you to go…” He frowned, as if trying to remember something very important. “He said he’d changed his mind, and to meet him at the airbase where you found the son of dog. I… don’t know what that means, but he seemed to think you would.”

Crowley was already standing, lurching unsteadily towards the door, making loose ‘follow me’ gestures in the general direction of Tech Support.  
“Come with me, Tech Support. You’re gonna have to drive my car.”  
“Oh- oh, alright, only- wow.” Crowley was attempting to fit his keys into the lock, and Tech Support seemed utterly blown away by the sleek lines of his Bentley. It was quite gratifying, actually; that was the effect Crowley liked to have. But not right now. “You want _me_ to drive _that?”_  
“You a good driver?” Crowley slurred, then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, better than me right now.”  
“Well, of course I’ll- I think I’m a- er, my partner does call me Dick Turpin.”  
“Right. Get in.” Crowley managed to unlock the passenger door at last and slid into the seat, tossing the keys to Tech Support as he did. Tech support settled behind the wheel.  
“Don’t you want to know why she calls me-?”  
“No.”  
“Right. Driving now. Er. Where am I going?”

The Bentley pulled smoothly away from the kerb, and Crowley allowed himself a grim smile of satisfaction. He was going to see his angel again.


	21. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally finished writing this, and we're getting towards the end now! I hope you're enjoying it.

**5.5 years ago**

An unremarkable man stood outside a slightly run-down building, clutching the false papers that gave him the authority to remove a child from the care of the local authority. If it worked, he would have grave concerns about the state of the system - but it would work. It had to.

A classic car drove past, and the unremarkable man had to make a conscious effort not to watch as it disappeared around the corner. He would see Crowley soon enough - and, indeed, it was only a couple of minutes later that his rival appeared, Dogg at his side.  
“You weren’t followed?”  
“Do you really think I’d risk it if I wasn’t sure?” Crowley scoffed. “No, we weren’t followed.”  
“Good. Good, well, neither was-”  
“Can we just get on with it, please?” Dogg interrupted, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’d like to know if this is another wasted journey.”  
“Ah. Of course. No, this is the right boy, I’m sure of it.”

They went in, and Aziraphale spoke to the social worker in charge while Crowley and Dogg sat in the waiting room. It wasn’t long before Aziraphale had to rejoin them, the social worker going off to fetch the child he’d requested. All his false papers had been in order, it seemed.  
“What now?” Dogg was shifting in his seat again.  
“Now we wait,” Aziraphale told him firmly, “and then the boy will be released into my care.”  
“What if this isn’t the right boy?” Dogg seemed very anxious about it - understandable, given that he would have to report back to his employers sooner rather than later and good news would be preferable - but before either agent could reassure him, a small voice piped up from the doorway.  
“Dad?”

Dogg looked up, and all the tension left his body in a rush.  
“Adam!” He rushed over and swept the boy into his arms.  
“I was going to run away and find you,” the boy - the right boy - Adam was babbling, “I missed you and Mum _so much_ \- but look, I’m all better now, so can I come home?”  
“We’re coming to you,” Dogg told him, and then looked up at the baffled agents. “I should probably explain.”  
“Yes, you should,” Crowley told him, his voice little more than a warning growl. “What on earth are you playing at?”  
“I’m not Mr Dogg. I lied. I’m Mr Young. Arthur Young. Professor Young’s husband, Adam’s dad.” He lowered his voice. “Can I trust you?”  
“No,” said Crowley, just as Aziraphale said “Yes.”  
“Deirdre’s going to try to get across the border as soon as she can.” He sighed. “We’re defecting, but not- we just don’t want to be anyone’s puppets any more. Deirdre’s going to leave the science alone for a while, focus on being a mum and stay under the radar, and I’ll get a job doing something or other. Office work. I can do that. We’ve got papers, we just- well, we couldn’t all get across at once, and we could hardly bring Adam back and then smuggle him out again, so.”  
“I’m not hearing this. Any of it,” Crowley snarled, and stormed off to soothe the rather confused social worker.

Aziraphale moved in close to Arthur’s ear, so Adam couldn’t hear.  
“Do you think she’ll make it?”  
“I don’t know,” Arthur admitted, “but she’s made up her mind.”  
“Good luck. If there’s anything I can do to help- but you’d better get out of here, now. We all should.”

Ten minutes later, a classic car overtook an unremarkable man as he walked down the street, half a block behind a father and his young son. None of the parties involved interacted with one another, but as the father and son turned off into a side street and the car sped away, the unremarkable man couldn’t help but feel a little more alone than he had before.

* * *

**Present Day**

Aziraphale had made it to his old friend Newt’s house thanks to a combination of luck, desperation and darkness. He’d stumbled through an apology and begged Newt to take his cryptic message to Crowley.  
“I think my flat’s on fire, and if that’s true, Crowley might have gone there to look for me. He’s - you can’t really miss him. Stay with him, will you?” Newt had nodded, looked Aziraphale over with a worried sort of air, and made a decision.  
“Anathema’s away, and I’m not leaving you here alone. I’ll take your message, but I’d be much happier if you stayed with my neighbours until you go. They’re good people. A bit odd, but-”  
“Trustworthy?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, I trust them.” And that had to be good enough, for now.

He sat awkwardly on the unfamiliar sofa and looked around at all the fortune-telling paraphenalia scattered about. On one wall, if he wasn’t very much mistaken, was a riding crop mounted like a trophy. Tracy noticed him looking when she came in with the tea, and smiled.  
“I’m retired, dear, but that crop bought us this house, really.”  
“Oh, I see.” He didn’t think he strictly needed to know that, but there they were. “Very good.”  
“Drink your tea, now, you look shattered. You’ve had a very trying day, haven’t you?”  
“I’ve had a very trying life,” Aziraphale admitted, “which I believe very nearly ended tonight.”  
“You’ll be wanting biscuits, too, then.” She held out the packet towards him. “Is there anything we can do to help?”  
“No, thank you. I just need to catch my breath, and then I’ll need to move.”  
“Going anywhere in particular?” Tracy brandished the biscuits again, and Aziraphale took one before she could get any more insistent.  
“Tadfield. It’s-”  
“Oh, I know where that is. Are people likely to be looking for you, on your way there?”  
“Well, they don’t know where I’m going, but… yes. That’s one reason I need to get going; being here could endanger you.” He smiled apologetically, and Tracy smiled back before turning to call over her shoulder.  
“Shadwell! How much fuel is there in the scooter? Enough to get us out of the city?”

There was a pause, punctuated by stomping and the slamming of doors, and then Tracy’s partner appeared in the doorway.  
“Aye, there’s most of a tank.”  
“Excellent. We’ll give you a lift, then.”  
“But-” Aziraphale didn’t understand. “This isn’t your- you don’t even know me-”  
“Well, there’s not much room on the scooter, so we’ll be rather close friends by the time we get there.” She winked at him. “Besides, whoever you’re afraid of, they’re looking for one man, right? Not two men and a woman on a scooter.”  
“Well-”  
“And the helmet won’t hurt, either.” Tracy nodded firmly and took up her own cup of tea. “That’s settled, then. Drink up; I imagine time is of the essence.”

Aziraphale didn’t know how to thank her, but he did his best as he shrugged on a borrowed coat and fastened a borrowed helmet. There was some argument about who should sit at the back on the scooter, but at last Shadwell agreed to let Aziraphale sit in the middle.  
“No funny business,” he growled, as Aziraphale gingerly wrapped his arms around Tracy’s waist, “I’ve got a pistol in my pocket.” At first, Aziraphale took that as part of the warning, but it soon became clear that Shadwell meant to use it to ward off pursuit. There was another little delay as Tracy convinced him to keep it in his pocket, rather than brandishing it at passing motorists.  
“We _are_ trying to keep a low profile, dear. Best keep it hidden until we need it.”

Then they were off, the little scooter reaching an astonishing speed as they left the city and turned onto dark, twisting country roads. Aziraphale only hoped that Crowley would be able to join him in Tadfield.


	22. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where things get a little chaotic, sorry! Enjoy.

**2 years ago**

Crowley made his way through the crowd and settled with his back against a tree, closing his eyes to bask in the sun. For a moment, he let himself relax, tried to chase all the tension from his body and close off the constant hypervigilance of his senses so he could find some sense of calm. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, eyes closed, straining for peace, before he became aware of another man approaching the tree, sitting on the other side and leaning back against the trunk.  
“You look very serene, my dear boy.”  
“’Ziraphale.” His voice rasped, as if he’d been asleep for hours. “I was awake, you know.”  
“Of course you were.”  
“I was!”  
“Of course, my dear, I wouldn’t expect anything else from somebody in our line of work.” There was a smile in his voice; Crowley would have given almost anything to be able to turn and see it for himself. _Anything but Aziraphale’s life._ “Thank you for meeting me.”  
“Don’t thank me. What have you got?”  
“Oh. Oh, well, the reason I called you was just to let you know that the Youngs have had to relocate again. Apparently our side managed to track them down and are really quite insistent on Professor Young helping them get an edge over your side.”  
“And they told you where they went? How do they know you didn’t sell them out?”  
“Well, _really,_ Crowley. I wouldn’t-”  
“I know that, angel. But they don’t.” He sighed, pressing his head back against the tree as if it could get him closer to Aziraphale. “I’ve got news, too. Well. Chatter.”  
“Go on.”  
“My side have picked up a lot of pro-union talk recently, people trying to make the two countries into one again. Rumblings about how the border was a mistake in the first place.”  
“Well. That’s nothing new.”  
“No, but now my side have decided to stoke it up and set the unionists to thinking that they should unite the country by force.”  
He heard Aziraphale gasp. “An invasion?”  
“Yeah. They’re trying to stir up military action, mandated by the people, of course.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “There’s going to be another war, isn’t there?”  
“Yes.” Aziraphale sounded troubled; Crowley sympathised. The last war had cost _him_ a great deal more than it had cost his angel, after all. “Yes, and very soon, I fear.”  
“Well.” He caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd, looking his way. They’d been looking his way earlier, too. Perhaps they were just taking in the relaxed sprawl of strangers in the grass, the sunlight playing through the leaves of the tree. Perhaps not. Crowley wasn’t going to risk it. “I’d best be off, angel. You too. Be safe.”  
“And you. Try to remember the speed limit.”  
“90, isn’t it?”

And with Aziraphale’s exasperated laughter ringing in his ears, he walked away. He was sorely tempted, but he didn’t look back.

* * *

**Present Day**

They were three-quarters of the way to Tadfield by the time Crowley sobered up enough to realise that he needed to make a stop.  
“Tech Support,” he began, and the man started, hands gripping the wheel tightly.  
“You’re- I didn’t- how long have you been awake?”  
“On and off,” Crowley told him, though in truth he wasn’t aware of having dozed off. “This thing we’re going to, the place near the son of dog, is it safe?”  
“Probably not,” Tech Support admitted, sounding less than thrilled. “But from what he said… I think he means you both to leave altogether.”  
“Leave Tadfield?”  
“Leave Lestern,” Tech Support told him solemnly. “Something happened tonight - well, you know, you saw-”  
“Right. Well. If we’re leaving, I need you to make a stop.”  
“A stop?” Tech Support hesitated. “Aziraphale didn’t mention-”  
“Yeah, well, he spent so much time trying not to call attention to himself that he didn’t pay attention to something else that mattered. We need to make a stop. Can you do that for me, Tech Support?”  
“It’s Newt,” Tech Support grumbled, and this time Crowley filed it away for future reference. He had always been good with names, when sober. “Yes, we can make a stop. A quick one.”  
“Yeah, it’ll be quick, they don’t care. I can’t pay if I’m out of the country, can’t keep checking- hope Aziraphale doesn’t mind.”  
“I don’t expect he’ll mind you bringing something important with you, as long as you get there fast.” Newt was, for all his apparent urgency, crawling along at exactly the speed limit.

Crowley leapt out of the car before it stopped, gesturing for Newt to shove over into the passenger seat while he waited.  
“Swap places, it’ll be quicker.”  
“You’re over the limit,” Newt pointed out, and Crowley sighed.  
“Fine, stay there, then. But only because we’re picking up precious cargo.” He made his way up to the front door of the house with long, certain strides and hammered on the door.

Mrs Dowling opened the door, looking distinctly unimpressed by the disturbance.  
“Harriet! I’ve come to pick up Warlock.”  
“Are you taking him for the night, then?”  
“Forever, I’m afraid. I wish there was more time for goodbyes, but-”  
“Take him. He’s been talking about running away to sea as it is, and he’s driving us mad.” That was Mr Dowling, appearing over his wife’s shoulder. Harriet looked only slightly more reluctant.  
“He _has_ been very difficult lately. I’m not sure we knew what we were getting into.”

All the same, once Warlock had been roused and packed, the Dowlings each hugged him goodbye in turn. Crowley was prepared for tears, but none came; Warlock just wriggled his way into the backseat of the Bentley and snapped his seatbelt into place. Newt, on the other hand, had some concerns.  
“Crowley, that’s a child.”  
“I’m not a child! I’m fourteen.”  
“You can’t kidnap a child.”  
“I’m not. He doesn’t belong to anyone but me, and if I’m leaving there’s nobody to pay for his care. We’re taking him with us.”  
“And you think Aziraphale will be OK with that?”

Crowley faltered, for a second, but then he remembered _Francis,_ head bowed over a jigsaw puzzle as he helped Warlock work out where to put the pieces that were missing.  
“Yeah. Yeah, he will.” _He’ll have to be,_ Crowley thought grimly, _I’m not leaving him behind._ “You remember Francis, Warlock?”  
“Of course I remember him. Are we all going on an adventure, Ash?”  
“Yeah, an adventure.” Oh, how he hoped he wasn’t about to get this boy killed. “It’ll be fun, but you’ve got to do everything I say when we get to the airbase, OK?”  
“OK,” Warlock agreed, and began staring out of the window as Newt, reluctantly, pulled out of the driveway.

“No more stops?” Newt asked quietly as they pulled onto the main road. “Only I think your car’s starting to overheat.”  
“At this speed? Nah, she’ll get us there. And no more stops. Tadfield, here we come.”  
“Tadfield, here we come,” Newt echoed, and the car trundled on.


	23. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end times...
> 
> The next chapter will be the last real one, then I'll do an epilogue. I hope you enjoy it!

**1 year ago**

The Horsemen were in the business of tying up loose ends, and they were the best at it. Private contractors, they made their living in paving the way for wars, for exploitation of natural resources, for false scarcity, and for death.

They found themselves employed, on this occasion, by both sides of a war that hadn’t yet been declared. Their task, for which they had already been amply compensated, was simply to wait for further instructions as both sides of the border rushed to prepare for a conflict.  
“There will be traitors, of course,” one side had told them, a bold, brash voice down a crisp, clear phone line, and,  
“They will need hunting down and dezztroying,” the other had advised through the static of a crackling connection.  
“We’ll let you know when we’ve found them.”

The Horsemen were quite used to this sort of thing. They didn’t take sides in the wars they took part in; they only served the war itself, and whoever was prepared to pay to win it.

They took the money, and they waited.

* * *

**Present Day**

Crowley tumbled out of the car the moment it arrived at the airbase and stumbled towards Aziraphale.  
“Angel. You’re _alive.”_ Aziraphale barely had time to turn before Crowley was upon him, clinging tightly to a man he’d thought he’d never see again, a friend he’d thought lost forever.  
“So are you.” Impossibly, unbelievably, Aziraphale was hugging him back. “I’m sorry, my dear. I should have listened to you.”  
“We’re here now. Your message found me.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Newt, who was climbing out of the driver’s seat as he spoke. “Where’d you find him, anyway?”  
“We were at university together. His neighbours very kindly gave me a lift.” Aziraphale frowned slightly, and Crowley followed his gaze to see that Newt was now leaning into the back seat of the Bentley, talking too quietly for them to hear. “What’s he-?”  
“Newt!”

They all turned to see a dark-haired woman run across the airbase and throw herself at him.  
“Anathema!” Newt hugged her. “I didn’t know this was the airbase.”  
“You’re not here to help?” That was when she seemed to notice the rest of them. “Aziraphale? What are you doing here?”  
“Stealing a plane,” Aziraphale admitted, somewhat sheepishly. “I’m afraid I’ve got myself in rather a lot of trouble.”  
“That’s sort of our motto,” Anathema told him. “Well, Newt, since you’re here, you can help me out - the systems we’re trying to take down are here.”  
“Taking down systems?” An older man Crowley assumed was one of Newt’s neighbours interrupted. “Stealing planes? Who _are_ you?”  
“We - Newt and I - work for an activist group who are trying to stop another war. If we can take down both side’s computer networks, maybe we can force them to work together,” Anathema explained.  
“And failing that, at least they won’t be able to start their war so quickly,” Newt added. “Anathema, this is Crowley, he’s a friend of Aziraphale’s. I drove him here.”  
“You let Dick Turpin drive?” Anathema laughed.  
“Crowley?” The older man glared at him; the expression seemed vaguely familiar, but Crowley didn’t have time to work out why. He did, however, want to know one thing.  
“All right, I’ll bite. Why do you call him Dick Turpin?”  
“Because everywhere I go, I hold up traffic,” Newt told him, and the pair of them high-fived. 

Crowley sighed. “You can fly a plane, I take it, angel?”  
“Of course.” Aziraphale looked faintly offended by the question. “It was part of my basic training, and I enjoyed it, so I’ve kept it up. We really ought to get going, I can’t thank you all enough-”  
“All right, but a two-seater’s not going to cut it.”  
“Whyever not-?” But Crowley was already turning back to the Bentley, beckoning for Warlock to come and join them. As the boy emerged from the car, Aziraphale’s jaw dropped.  
“Is that- Warlock, is that you? How you’ve grown!”  
“I couldn’t leave him here,” Crowley told him, hating himself for the pleading note that crept into his voice. “I was paying for his care, and once we’re gone-”  
“No- no, of course- well, I had planned to take that one anyway.” He indicated one of the larger planes on the small airbase, a four-seater. “I take it the Dowlings are aware of it?”  
“They know he’s coming with me, yeah.”  
“Right, then. Well. Let’s get you on the plane, then, young Warlock- oh, Anathema, dear, do you need our help?”  
“No, no - nobody takes down a system like me and Newt. One of these days, though, I want to know what on earth you do that means you got taught to fly a plane _for work.”_ Anathema grinned, and dragged Newt away towards one of the buildings around the edge of the airbase.

Aziraphale turned. “Tracy, Sergeant Shadwell, I can’t thank you enough for the lift. Will you be all right getting home?”  
_Shadwell,_ Crowley realised suddenly, _the locksman. Bloody hell. I cancelled that job, no wonder he’s looking at me like that._ He turned away to pat the Bentley’s bonnet, saying goodbye and avoiding the man’s accusatory glare all at once.  
“Oh, yes, don’t worry about us. You’ll take care, won’t you?”  
“I shall certainly try,” Aziraphale promised her - and that was when Anathema reappeared, holding up her phone.

“Er, do you two know anything about a group called the Four Horsemen?”  
“Yes,” both Crowley and Aziraphale snapped in unison.  
“Right, well, I’ve just been warned they’re headed this way. My instructions are to kill the systems if I can and get out before they get here - what about you?”  
“We’re leaving,” Aziraphale told her hurriedly, “thank you, my dear.”

Within minutes, Crowley was helping Warlock into the plane, handing his backpack up to him and instructing him to buckle his seatbelt. He was about to climb in himself when he realised that Aziraphale wasn’t following him.  
“Come on, angel, we don’t have time to waste.”  
“I’ve just got to do the pre-flight checks, then I’ll be right with you.”  
“The pre-flight- angel, if the Horsemen are coming here, we do _not_ want to be here when they arrive.” Tracy and Shadwell had already left on their scooter, and Anathema and Newt had assured them that they would be doing the same as soon as possible, whether they’d accomplished their mission or not.  
“Nor do I want us to _crash,_ Crowley, especially before we can get across the border. I’m not putting us - putting _Warlock_ \- at risk like that.”

That was how Crowley found himself sitting with Warlock in the plane, waiting for Aziraphale as he made a very slow circuit around it.


	24. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last 'real' chapter! I hope you've enjoyed reading this fic as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Thanks for all your comments and kudos, and I'll see you in two days for the epilogue :)

**Twenty minutes ago**

“No, Peter, you can’t have another Fruit Pastille, you’ve already had three. You’re supposed to suck on them to help with travel sickness, not wolf them down so they don’t hit the sides.” Miss Tyler sighed heavily. “Brian, please sit back down. I’m bringing you a bucket now. Excuse me, Sarah.”  
The bus lurched around yet another bend in the winding country road, and Miss Tyler got the bucket under Brian’s chin just in time. Next to him, Wensleydale pulled a face.  
“Actually, I feel sick now, too.”

As Miss Tyler turned back towards the front of the bus, a phone appeared in front of her face.  
“What am I looking at, Pepper?”  
“Traffic camera on the main road. It’s nose to tail, Miss, we’re not going to get anywhere through that lot.”  
“Maybe if we were on motorbikes,” a helpful voice offered, and Miss Tyler closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in through her nose and regretting it immediately.  
“Right. I’ll call the other bus and we’ll stop.”

They parked up on a straight stretch of road, and the kids were so rowdy that they ended up parking the buses right across both lanes, blocking it off so the kids could mill about in between. The road was almost never used, especially at this time of the day, so they probably weren’t going to cause any problems, and they could all use the fresh air.

She was just talking to Mr Bagman, who was in charge of the other bus, about whether to abandon their Ghadon field trip altogether, when they heard it. Motorbike engines, more than one - and all of a sudden the kids were crowding onto a single bus to press their faces against the windows. Miss Tyler looked, too.  
“Kids! You’re going to tip the bus if you’re not careful.”  
“Actually, the centre of gravity is too low.”  
“Yes, thank you, Wensleydale, let’s not _test_ the theory.” A couple of the more obedient kids backed away from the windows, and Miss Tyler squeezed into the gap they’d left.

Four motorbikes pulled up in front of the bus, and Mr Bagman went out to talk to them.  
“Sorry about the hold-up, we were just giving the kids some air - there’s usually no traffic here-”  
One of the riders removed her helmet and shook out her long red hair with an icy smile. “Move.”  
“Oh, yes, certainly-”  
“Miss Tyler?”  
“Not now,” Miss Tyler murmured, casting her mind back to twenty-eight years ago, when her father had shown her a picture on the news. The woman in front of her wasn’t the same person she’d seen on the television then, but she wore the same clothes, rode the same bike, belonged to the same organisation. She had the same tattoo, just below her ear. _WAR,_ it read. The same word was printed across the front of her bike, and her companions’ bikes read _FAMINE, POLLUTION_ and _DEATH._ “The Four Horsemen,” she murmured, echoing her father’s words from years ago.

“The Four Horsemen,” he’d told her, pointing at the pictures on the screen, “when they ride, suffering rides with them. They do the dirty work for governments that want to seem fair and look like they’re obeying the rules of war. If you ever see them, Jenny, you turn and run and you don’t stop running.”

  
“Kids,” Miss Tyler said, in her calmest voice, “who has a camera phone?” They all did, of course; her father would have had a fit about kids carrying surveillance devices everywhere they went. Right now, though, she was glad of it. “Good. Get them out and start livestreaming, please. Keep those cameras on me. Tag your friends, tag your parents, tag the news, anyone you can think of.”  
“Are you going to be all right, Miss?” Brian still looked a little peaky; she managed a smile for him.  
“I’ll be fine, Brian. Keep filming, OK?”

Miss Tyler stepped off of the bus and walked round to Mr Bagman.  
“Thanks, I’ll take it from here. You look after the kids.” She turned to the Horsemen and raised her voice as if she was giving an assembly in the big sports hall. “I know who you are. The Four Horsemen. A para-military group with no national allegiances, no loyalty, and no jurisdiction. You are classed as a terrorist group, and you work for governments who are up to no good.”  
“What a smart teacher you are.” War scoffed. “Run home and read your books, teacher.”  
“I’d like nothing more,” Miss Tyler told her, “but if you mean to start a war in Lestern, you’ll have to start it somewhere else.”  
“What do you say we start it right here? A slaughter of innocents should get things rolling, shouldn’t it? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Death?”  
Miss Tyler couldn’t see who was speaking, from beneath the helmets, but the one called Death gave no response. She wasn’t inclined to trust in their good hearts to protect her and the children, though.  
“You might like to know that you’re on camera. And those cameras are broadcasting live.” Four heads turned in unison, and Miss Tyler glanced back to see the kids waving cheekily from the windows, cameras pressed against the glass. Pepper was scribbling frantically on pieces of paper, which she handed off to Brian and Wensleydale.  
 _I BELIEVE,_ read Brian’s sign as he held it up. _IN PEACE,_ said Wensleydale’s, and then Pepper presented her own with a flourish. _BITCH._ Well, Miss Tyler could pretend not to have seen that last one.

The Horsemen stared at the cameras for several tense seconds.  
“We need to confirm our orders.” And with that, War put her helmet back on and they all roared away the way they’d come.

Miss Tyler sat down hard in the road as the kids ran out, cheering, to surround her. As Mr Bagman helped her up, she realised that her four favourite troublemakers were still on the bus, Adam tinkering with his phone as the others arranged Pepper’s signs behind him. He looked up, nodded, and handed the phone to Pepper. Then Adam Young looked directly into the camera and began to speak.

Mr Bagman produced a plain red Thermos flask from somewhere.  
“It’s not tea. Drink up.” And Miss Tyler did.

* * *

**Present Day**

Aziraphale climbed into the cockpit at last.  
“Everyone buckled in?”  
“Yes, angel, just go-”

And then, in an alarmingly short space of time, they were in the air. Crowley dared a glance out of the window and saw the whole country spread out below them; Celestan, an ugly scar down its centre where the border had been reinforced. Fernor and Lestern. Home.  
“We’re not ever coming back, are we?” Warlock asked from the back seat, his voice clear in Crowley’s headphones.  
“No.” Aziraphale sighed. “No, probably not. And I think, my dear, that we may have to be Francis and Ash for some time yet.”  
“Yeah.”

It was peaceful up there, among the clouds.  
“Aren’t-?” But Warlock’s question was cut off as the radio crackled into life.  
 _“Charlie-Lima-Six-Six-Six-Gulf-Oscar, this is Tadfield ATC. Do you read?”_  
“ATC, this is Gulf Oscar. Reading you.” Crowley tried very hard to focus on the message - were they in danger? - and not how extremely attractive Aziraphale’s calm, competent response was.  
 _“This is Newt. Just wanted to say good luck, really. And, er, this is the last working secure communications device in a hundred-mile radius, so. Hopefully the war is going to be a bit delayed.”_  
“That’s good news. And the Horsemen?”  
 _“Ah, well, the internet’s still working, and they’ve sort of gone viral. You’ll have to see it when you land. Wherever you land.”_  
“I suppose we will. I feel bad, taking off and leaving you to deal with it all.”  
 _“Don’t worry, just enjoy your retirement,” Anathema interrupted, “we can handle this. Besides, we’re taking your boyfriend’s car, so you’ve done your bit. Take care of each other.”_  
“Oh. Oh, yes, we will, thank you.” Aziraphale was blushing, his eyes roaming over Crowley as if he was a particularly tempting cake waiting to be devoured. Crowley could feel his own cheeks heating up, too.  
 _“Have a good life, Aziraphale. Over and out.”_

There was silence for a moment; Aziraphale reached out to brush his fingers over Crowley’s knee, and Crowley grabbed the offending hand, squeezing it gently before letting it go. Aziraphale, thankfully, put his hand back on the controls.

It was Warlock who broke the spell.  
“Who’s Aziraphale?”


	25. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're actually at the end! Thank you for coming along on this journey with me, I've really loved seeing all your comments and knowing people are reading. I hope you enjoyed it!

**Present Day**

“…So it seems to me that if our governments are going to keep picking stupid fights because they don’t want to share, maybe it’s up to us normal people to fix things. We used to be all the same country, before I was born but not _that_ long ago, really, and I don’t see we can’t still all work together. Maybe it’s time we stopped listening to stupid governments that can’t share, and… well, believed in peace.”  
The camera zoomed out from Adam Young’s earnest teenage face to show hastily made paper signs. _I believe in peace._ Then the news feed switched to a reporter on the ground at the Fernor-Lestern border.  
“As you can see, here at the Lestern Gate, protesters are swarming towards the border from both sides, and where they meet - well, that’s really quite something. They’re reaching out - shaking hands - I can see a few people hugging - oh, and you can just hear the opening lines of the old Celestani National Anthem. The protesters are singing - the _people_ are singing - back to you in the studio, Coleen, I’m going to sing too.”

Aziraphale turned his attention from the television to Crowley, who was sitting across the table from him at a quiet pub-restaurant in a country they’d never been to before.   
“Well said, young Adam.”  
“We’re still not going back, angel. Not yet.”  
“No, no. Of course not. But it’s nice to have some hope for the old place. We’ve got plenty of places to explore.”  
“Anywhere you want, angel. The world’s our oyster.”

Aziraphale smiled and raised his glass of champagne in a toast.  
“Well, then. To the world.”  
“To the world.” Crowley echoed, touching his glass to Aziraphale’s.

A third glass clinked against them both.  
“To the world,” Warlock agreed solemnly, and swiftly had his champagne confiscated.

And all night, people sang in Lesterngate Square.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone at the go-events tumblr/server for a wonderful event - for more excellent AUmens, there's a masterpost [here](https://go-events.tumblr.com/post/622477618308087808/good-aumens-au-fest-masterpost-5-june-28-30) with links to previous masterposts.
> 
> And thank you all, again, for reading!


End file.
